


Before He Screwed It Up

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 34,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Spike inadvertently makes a wish to "go back before he screwed it all up" --sending Angel Season 5 Spike back to the morning after Buffy Season Six Spike first gets it on with Buffy.Can he use his knowledge of the future to fix things?  In the world at large, sure, but particularly his relationship with Buffy?  He'll find it's easier said than done.(I had horrible writer's block at the start of quarantine and started this as a sort of present to myself to get back to my Spuffy fanfic days.)
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers, Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris/Anya Jenkins
Comments: 181
Kudos: 371





	1. Dangers of Getting Drunk With Vengeance Demons

Spike hung his head over his drink. His lips felt numb and he was beginning to slur his words, but it felt good, and Tracey from accounting was really listening, the dear girl. “I mean… I just wish… I wish I could go back, y’know? Back before I bollocksed it all up with her.”

Tracey’s sweet round face melted into something altogether scarier and she said “Granted,” with a wicked grin.

Oh, bollocks.

Spike tottered trying to get up from his bar stool and then… didn’t so much fall as have the world re-orient itself so he was lying on his back. There was a ragged patch of sky, pink with dawn, framed by broken walls and fallen roof-beams. A fabric of ceramic tile and wiring hung like a matt of jungle vines. He was in some ruined building. He felt like he’d personally broken every beam with his body.

Someone moved next to him. “When… when did the house fall down?!”

Buffy. Clutching his duster to her bare chest.

Spike looked down at himself – scratched, beaten, sore, well-fucked. Then back at Buffy. Then himself. Suddenly he recognized the stupidest detail - the pattern on the wallpaper on a fragment of wall. He sat bolt upright. “This? This is literally right before I bollocksed it up? Not last night or fucking last year?”

“Huh?” Buffy stared at him like she just realized he was there with her.

Oh bollocks, indeed. He needed to say something. Something sane and reassuring and better than he’d said the first time. He cleared his throat. “Uh… I was just thinking out loud and… well, the most important thing to say is that I respect--“

“I need to get home.” Buffy started picking up her clothes. “I left Dawn home alone all night!”

How, exactly, did one NOT bollocks this up? Spike felt a tight point in his chest, like wood, knowing some of the things Buffy was about to say to him. What he was about to say to her. All the hurt that lay ahead of them. 

Either vengeance demons were always out to screw you over, or Tracey-from-accounting believed this was a point at which Spike could make things right.

Well, for starters, he’d been an idiot, thinking he could buy respect with sex. That morning – this morning -- he’d been thrilled… thought he’d finally made it into the promised land. So moronically sure he’d teach her to crave him and craving was as good as love.

He shuddered, suddenly desperate to leave the filth of his skin, his past, his nakedness. “Soul makes this feel ten times worse.”

Buffy froze halfway through putting on her bra. She looked horrified.

Oh bollocks of bollocks. What damage would that do to the fragile girl’s mind? Shag one vampire, he loses his soul, shag another, he gains one. Spike coughed. “Just thinking out loud,” he said. “Wondering about… You… carry on. Got to get going and all. Don’t let me keep you. That’d be selfish. I’ll help as soon as my legs can move again.”

“You said something about souls.”

Could bollocks HAVE bollocks? It was an amusing thought. Spike played the coward and looked for his jeans. What sounded like ‘soul’? Bowl? I have a bowl? No… goal? Foal? Buggering buggered bollocks bugger fuck!

Buffy was still staring at him. “Was that some kind of Angel joke? Are you making fun of me?”

“No. No… just…” Spike felt a sudden inspiration. He stopped fighting with his jeans, and pressed a hand to his chest. “You. You’re my soul.”

Oh no. That was NOT better. Anger was giving way to nausea on Buffy’s face.

“Forget the sodding bad poetry. Just… I’ll try to be better, Buffy. For you. Now that we’re… now that we’ve...”

“WE are nothing,” Buffy said. 

It hurt exactly as much hearing it a second time. He bit his lip and told his hurt and anger to bugger off. What she really meant was that he was nothing. And at the time it had been true. He followed her as she picked through the rubble for her clothes. “I know that. Not asking anything from you. Just offering…”

“I don’t want anything you could offer.” She paused to point at him. “Breathe a word of this to anyone and I will kill you.”

In place of sharp pain, he felt tired, weary. What a difference time makes. He was fond of her, even as she struck him true. Fond of her mistakes. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Hopping on one foot, zipping a boot, Buffy said. “No, you don’t. This freak show? It’s over. That was it. Never again.”

How was he supposed to fix things? Reverse a stupid decision? Was it something he did this very morning? Or was it more of a general cocking things up?

He became aware that Buffy was waiting for a response. “Yes, lo- Buffy. Not going to kiss and tell. Nothing to worry about. I'm a gentleman. In some matters.”

He helped her find her jacket. He felt naked in just his jeans. Gritty. Dirty. He didn't have time to get his kit on. He was trying to be completely considerate. Safest option. Just… be perfect. Right.

Buffy stopped on the stairs, just a moment, looking back. He didn’t know what to say. He hadn't snuck her underwear this time. “You don’t know this now,” he said, “But you’ll forgive yourself. It’s okay to want…”

And she ran.

Alone. Again.

Spike found his shirt, all tattered and half buried, and felt a strong desire to collapse. 

Spike grit his teeth. He'd saved the sodding world and did it laughing. He was strong enough to endure every torment twice. He’d show her. And himself. He shook the rag to knock the dirt off before he put it on. This time he knew there was no sewer entrance to be found under the piles of rubble beneath him, so he wouldn’t waste his efforts on it. Straight up and across the street while the shadows were still long, for him.

Yes. This going back in time thing would work. He’d have bloody second sight. Stop every monster in its tracks, know what was coming. Bloody brilliant.

What had happened right after this? Spike felt blank. Warren and Andrew and Jonathan were making random weird plans but which ones? The thing with Katrina wasn't later he was sure. The time fuck up? Or was there that thing at the Doublemeat Palace? Or those ren fair rejects – no that’d been the year before.

He froze in place. Buggering hell, he had no idea what happened next. He hadn't known he'd have to keep track!

He shrugged into his coat and felt for his fags. Christ he was sore all over. She’d really given him a pounding.

There was fondness, in that, too. The quiet joy of soreness. “Couldn’t have sent me back during the shagging, though. Powers that wank.” He flipped off the heavens, lit a cigarette, and vaulted the ruined staircase.


	2. Monster of the Week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike sets out to find out exactly what was happening in his life at this point so he can start fixing everything.   
> Anya doesn't help.

Spike felt better after a thorough wash in the Restfield Cemetery utility shed. (There was a sink and all the GoJo you could stand.) He changed into fresh clothes and splashed on some cologne to get rid of the chemical smell of the industrial soap. He paused putting the cologne bottle back. A stubby eyeliner pencil rolled against the side of the drawer. Was he wearing eyeliner at that point? He recalled he’d gone a while without in the hopes that Buffy would prefer it.

Christ, he felt like he needed a guidebook to his own past.

He did the top lids only. A compromise.

The jewelry collection was like getting a group of old, dead friends back. His favorite neck chain, his leather straps, his rings… all went up with the hellmouth. He hadn’t worn anything extra to the big final ta da. Hadn’t exactly expected to come back and miss his things.

He slipped on a thumb ring and felt richer with the smooth metal against his skin.

Right. That was enough primping. Time to find Giles. If there was anyone he trusted to know what to do…

He stopped a few feet into the sewer tunnel. Was this during the time Giles was away in Merry Old? That would suck.

Nothing to it but to check the Magic Box. If Anya was ruling the roost, that would answer that question.

Find Giles. Tell him about the Nerd Trio. Defeat those wankers, easily and before anyone got sodding killed. Then tell Giles about the First Evil. This could all work.

Would have been nice, though, to get sent back before Glory’s tower. Or before Glory, even. Or… no, sod it, he had to drop that line of thinking. How far back would be far enough, really? Back before his first victim? Before he was turned? What if he butterfly-stepped it all into a bloody dystopia?

He climbed the ladder from the sewer to the basement of the Magic Box – and how nice it was knowing this path? He’d toasted too many times before discovering it. The nearest manhole was a full twenty yards from the front entrance.

He found Anya helping a customer, no other scoobies in sight. He leaned casually on the end of the counter and waited for an opening. He gave Anya a wink. “Hello gorgeous.”

He was still working out how to ask if Giles had left for England already when she told the customer “Please Go,” and turned to stare at him.

And stare.

Was the eyeliner wrong? “What?”

“There’s something different about you.” She tilted her head, staring raptly into his eyes like she saw something ... 

Oh bollocks. Again. Continual bollocks. “I thought you had to be a demon to see that.”

She covered her open mouth. “When did you get it? How?”

“I was really hoping not to go public… look, I had a run-in with one of your former sorority sisters and used the ‘w’ word. That’s all you need to know for now. I’m trying to figure out exactly what’s going on so I know who to trust and who to tell what to. Clear?”

She dropped her hand. “A vengeance demon can’t give a vampire his soul.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say that she did.”

“You implied it. You implied it heavily.”

“I wished to go back in time. I’m from the future, and in the future, yeah, I got a soul, and it’s mine, and I fought for it and chose to have it and I’d rather not tell anyone right now because it’ll drive poor Buffy around the bend.”

Anya squinted at him. “Why?”

Spike gripped the counter for support. “Maybe I just want people not to treat me different, okay? You lot have this idea like a soul automatically equals good and no soul automatically equals bad and it’s more complicated than that.”

“Well, I know that.”

“Right, but they don’t. Buffy doesn’t. I want her – I want people to accept me for what I am, fangs and all.”

“Oh,” Anya said, and smiled. “That’s sweet. It’s doomed to fail, but sweet.”

The shop bell tinkled and Xander came in with a donut box. “I have an hour before the lumber truck arrives, so I’m rehashing my donut-boy role.” 

Spike tried to tell Anya with his eyes and emphatic gestures to say nothing. She frowned and mouthed, "Pictionary?" 

Xander, blithely ignorant, went to the table. “Who’s on frost-demon research detail?” He paused. “I’m not seeing a Buffy, a Willow, or even a Dawnie. Is it really just us and Captain Peroxide? No offense, but Dawnie’s a big gun on the research compared to this crew.”

“I’m a big gun.” Anya picked up a book from the counter and carried it to the research table.

“I don’t remember anything about a frost demon,” Spike said, pointedly. This was the part where you fill me in, Anya love.

She waved dismissively. “Froze a guard solid at the museum and took a diamond.”

The doorbell jingled again and Buffy came in, sunlight shimmering off her hair as the door fell behind her. Spike felt himself transfixed, like he was back at square one. Lovesick sod, take one million. “Hi, Buffy,” his voice came out weak.

And Buffy was looking at him with horror, as though she suspected he’d been intimately describing her orgasm face to her friends. He felt the lack of her trust like a heavy weight. He slapped his hands together. “So, we’re researching frost demons, are we? Xander brought donuts. It’s just like old times.” He cut a quick glance at Anya. “Before anything changed.”

“Right!” said Anya a little too chipperly. “Because nothing unexpected or unusual has happened to anyone here.”

Buffy’s eyebrows launched into her hairline and Spike had a brief, vicious wish he could strangle Anya.

“I’m going to train first,” Buffy said. She grabbed Spike’s arm in passing and flung him in front of her into the training room. He barely had recovered and turned to face her when she punched him.


	3. Quick, Old Sod, Explain This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy spar, sparks fly, Buffy has conflicted thoughts

The nose. Again. Christ. “OW.” Damn but Buffy’s aim was always spot-on. Spike gave her what he hoped was a quelling glare.

She held her fist cocked. “What did you tell Anya?”

“Not everything is about you.”

She swung again but this time he caught her wrist. “Don’t start, love.” They were locked in close together. He dropped his voice to a seductive purr. “We like this building standing.”

She wrested her fist from his grip. “Tell me what you said. And don’t lie. You have guilt-face.”

Spike had a momentary spark of brilliance, if he did say so himself. “Chip. It’s not working right, as you and I so thoroughly determined last night. Asked Anya to do a spell, like to check on it. Obviously asked her not to tell anyone because the rest of your friends would happily stake me if they suspected.”

Buffy backed away, suddenly vulnerable. “You said it was me.”

“Buffy, most of what I said last night was bollocks.” He reached for her, but she shrank away. He let his arms fall to his sides. “I don’t know what’s up with the chip, why it worked and didn’t and did. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. Not going to be an additional burden on you. Not going to go back to Spike’s Evil Plot of the Week. I'm safe as houses. I swear. Went to Anya cause she's the only one here understands what it’s like, crossing over from the dark side.”

He could tell she was buying it. She was going from angry and vulnerable to annoyed. “Does Xander know?”

“Do I look like I fit in an ashtray?”

She rubbed her forehead. “Okay. Okay…” she walked toward the exit.

“Oi. You were supposed to be training. Can’t walk back out there so soon and not sweaty.”

She gave him a heated look. “Is that all you think about?”

“Oh for… I’m saying let's spar.” He couldn’t help adding, “or are you afraid you won’t be able to restrain yourself when I’m in touching distance?”

He easily ducked under her swing because it came precisely when he expected it to. He danced left and she kicked at him. Another block. This was good. Comfortable. He swung for her and she parried. The dance warmed up.

Then she tumbled him to the ground and she was on top of him and he forgot for a moment they were fighting and he reached for her while she slugged him in the face and she pulled back. “What are you doing?!”

Right. No hugging in fight club. He rolled so he was on top.

That… scared him. He froze and she easily kicked him across the room.

He staggered to his feet against the wall and saw her looking at him… hungrily. He looked down, half expecting to find a chocolate bar stuck to his chest. No, he was just him, but his shirt was riding up over his stomach. “What?”

She advanced on him with a look that made him uncertain if she was about to rip his head off his shoulders or shag him blind. Or both. He pressed against the wall, her hands were hot on his skin. What should he do? With his hands? With his lips? With his stupid emotions? 

The door opened. “Hey,” Xander said, “try to leave the walls standing, would ya?”

Buffy froze with her fingers on Spike’s belt and hastily backed away. “No, we’re done,” she said, and followed Xander out.

Spike was left turned on, his shirt pushed up, his belt half-undone, wondering just how blind Xander could be. He hit his head gently against the wall behind him. “Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks.”

***

Buffy was not paying attention to the research session, or anything other than the fact that Spike was there and looking unfairly… lickable.

DEAD. Evil. Not tasty. She knew that. But there was this thing where her stupid brain filled in all these details she had recently learned about him. Like the fact that the thigh under those jeans, the one lifting slightly now as he balanced a book against it, leaning against the ladder because he was apparently too sexy to use a chair like normal people – that thigh taut with muscle under tight denim -- she knew how that thigh felt, that his skin was satiny, maybe because he was dead or maybe because his leg hair was fine, but it felt so nice when that thigh moved against her own and… other things felt so nice, and hard, and perfect and … 

Yes, that was the thing. Also the thing with the head-tilt and the bottom lip he was throwing at her right now, which was COMPLETELY evil.

Buffy threw down her book. “I’m going patrolling.”

“Right,” Spike said, straightening.

“Alone.”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Because you’ll accidentally find the answer wandering about. I’ve been telling all of you gits, it’s not a frost monster. It’s Warren, Jonathan and Andrew.”

“Who’s Andrew?” Xander asked, and Spike gave him this LOOK, like it was a stupid question. Spike didn’t even go to Sunnydale High! Well… other than that one night… when he’d called her cutie and rubbed his flat stomach and said weapons made him feel all manly. There was something a little submissive in that, wasn’t there? Like he was objectifying himself. Mmm objectified Spike...

Oh dang. He was talking, and Xander was talking, and Anya was talking, and Buffy hadn’t been listening at all because she was thinking about Spike’s stomach and how really strong and firm it was and when did she become a stomach girl?

She should not be fantasizing about all the nights of Spike she could have had… well, he hadn’t had the chip so that would involve serious safety issues. Oo sexy danger.

She shook her head. Hornball Buffy was NOT what she thought would break her out of her post-resurrection funk. She turned and walked out before Spike finished whatever it was he was talking about.

At least it was clear he didn’t intend to sully her reputation. Thank god! It would have been so easy for him to run and brag to his buddies.

Buffy stopped where she was and looked back. There was Spike, two paces behind. He stopped, too. “What?”

“Did you tell anyone?”

He scowled. “Already said no.”

He was evil. He had to be less reliable than the average human guy. “What about demons? Willy?”

“No one means no one.” There was something really intense about how he said that. “Horns, fangs, and bad fashion sense included.” He reeled back. “You might think demons don’t count, but I do.”

That was probably a reference to something she’d said. Why did he have to be such a fragile vampire? “Fine. If you have to tag along, we’ll sweep the cemetery first.”

“Where you listening to anything I said in there?” He looked… disappointed. Like a professor. That was really unfair. He sighed. “Short version: Warren had plans for a freeze ray and stealing a diamond. I saw them when I went to his lair.”

No one used words like "lair." He was saying it all too casually, like he was covering up for something or lying. And after getting all judge-y! “Why should I believe you?”

Spike looked skyward, and was definitely not pretty when he did that, with the long throat and tense jaw. “Look, Slayer, just come with me to his house, yeah? You can look yourself. Boy’s got a sodding Dr. No Junior Playset going with his mates.”

“And you’ll do what? Throw headaches at them?”

And there was Spike’s smug face. The one she loved to punch the most. He sauntered closer. “Berks don’t know I can’t hit them. I was just over there, throwing threats around and they quivered like jellies.”

This was making sense. She didn’t want Spike to make more sense than her. “And what were you doing there? Selling vamp scout cookies?”

Zing! Buffy hits. He looked guilty. “Wanted the chip checked out. See if it was going to burn my brain or something. Knew robot boy had the chops.”

But it hadn’t been the chip. It’d been her. Buffy felt a deep twinge, a memory of how violent she’d been last night, how unhinged. Was she turning into a demon? Had she been one all along? Was all this lustiness demon-her coming to the fore? 

“Hey.” Spike reached for her arm. “Don’t look like that. It’s my problem, and I’ll take care of it.”

Buffy flinched away from his grasp. “I’m your problem?”

“What? No… the chip, I mean. I… you’re perfect.”

“I’m going home,” she said, and was glad of the decision the moment she heard it.

He jogged after her. “But these blokes… the trio. They are going to kill someone.”

He sounded certain. Buffy stopped. “How do you know?” Was he in on something with the dweebs? 

“Uh… I saw their plans, like I said. Something with Warren’s ex, Katrina.”

Why did that sound like a lie? What reason could he possibly have for lying about it? Come to think of it… “Why do you care if someone dies?”

Super lie-face. Gasp of fake offense. Oh yeah, Spike was up to something. Something more traditional-evil and less seduce-Buffy-evil. She folded her arms and waited for him to get over his attempt to cover up.

And then something very weird happened. He slumped, ruffled his hair, and looked at her like the absolute soul of honesty. “Soulless demons do care if people die. If someone they love dies, they care terribly. They don’t have a conscience. Doesn’t mean they don’t feel loss.”

“We aren’t talking about… you don’t even know Katrina.”

Intense look again. Leaning forward. Double unfair. “I know you, and I care about how it would hurt you, to have innocents die on your watch. You’ve hurt enough, Buffy.”

She felt a tiny squeeze in her heart, because it was sweet, but no… this was Spike, and thinking Spike was sweet was way worse than thinking he was sexy.

Her friends could forgive her for the sexy.

“You can’t get a soul second-hand,” Buffy said, and turned, striding purposefully toward home.

He followed. Of course he did. Buffy used to worry about dying young. Then she worried about dying alone. Now she feared she’d reach a ripe old age with Spike still five feet behind her, looking like her grand-nephew or something.

All these years she’d wanted a guy who stuck around – did it have to be the evil one?

Spike paused at the base of the walk, which was nice of him, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge it because way partial credit there, stalker-boy. 

But then the house was empty, except for Amy, now to be known as trespasser-Amy, and Willow and Dawn were due back an hour ago and no word, no sign. Buffy ran back outside.

There was Spike, at the end of the walk. “Dawn’s missing,” she blurted.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

He nodded and turned his back. The bastard! Abandoning her? Or did he know something. There was something very… know-something about his face.


	4. One Success, One Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike does something right, but his celebration is short-lived. This chapter starts out lighthearted and ends up dark. Sorry, I do like to hurt the pretty.

Buffy ran to catch up to Spike and grabbed him, spinning him to face her. “What did you do?”

“Huh?”

She punched him to jog his memory. “Where is Dawn? Where are you going?”

He shook his head wearily. “Vampire, pet. I’m tryin’ to track her.”

Buffy felt stupid, and guilty, which was stupid. “Oh.” She let go of him.

He took a step back. “Stay downwind, yeah? I… you and Dawn smell alike.”

And he tilted his head back and took a deep breath.

Great, now she was thinking about how she smelled.

Spike took off at a jog to the end of the street, where he paused and tilted his head before moving again.

He headed straight for the warehouses down by the tracks, the old industrial district that had never gotten gentrified past The Bronze. 

In a dark, greasy alley he paused. Buffy stopped just shy of catching up. What direction was downwind? “What do I smell like?”

Spike held up a finger. “It’s here.” He turned in place. “Magic portal, small one. Follow me.” And then he stepped forward… into invisibility.

Buffy stared. Spike’s head and one arm reappeared. “She’s here,” he said.

Buffy ran forward, nearly stumbling in shock as she was suddenly not in the alley. It was a skanky waiting room! It smelled like old carpet. But Dawn was there. “Buffy!” She threw her arms around her.

Buffy felt herself relax for the first time that day. “Dawn, you’re okay.”

Dawn let go. “Willow said she needed to get something. It’s been hours. The people here smell bad and there’s only magazines from 1978.”

Buffy frowned around the room. She didn’t like to think of Dawn alone here all this time. “Let’s go home.”

Dawn looked anxiously at a plain door on the other side of the room. “What about Willow?”

Spike shrugged. “I could see her home.”

It felt too easy, leaving Spike to take care of Willow. “No,” Buffy said. “She can find her own way home.”

Spike nodded. “Right. ‘Spect she will.”

And so the three of them left. Just a step and they were back on the rain-glistening street. Spike shook his head like he was trying to clear a bad smell. Still with the making Buffy self-conscious. What did the world smell like, to vampires?

He ruffled Dawn’s hair. “Look at me,” he said. “I did something right.”

Dawn smacked his hand away, but looked amused. “Don’t let it go to your head, blood-breath.”

Dawn and Spike had this whole summer together without her. It made her feel, once again, like she was living outside of her own life.

Spike gave her a look… how many weird, knowing looks was this for him, tonight? “I’ll see you ladies home, then,” he said, and gestured for them to go ahead of him.

That was Spike, always two paces behind.

***

Spike spent the next day getting his house in order. He read through his diary – he was not a good diary-keeper, but between the half-finished poems and evil plots, he found a rough chronology of what had been happening in the weeks before. 

He cancelled some nefarious deals, squared up debts, and killed a demon fence he’d always felt had it coming, even when he was evil.

Then he did his laundry and tidied up the crypt. It might be a hole in the ground designed to house the dead, but it was his hole in the ground, and he realized with chagrin that he’d been missing the sense of well-being that came from being house-proud. It said something that an abandoned crypt was a good sight nicer than his LA apartment. Well, Doyle had picked that one out. Evil bachelor tastes.

Spike sat down on his freshly-dusted sarcophagus with his diary and a fresh pencil to make a list of the disasters yet to come, that he knew of, and how to thwart them:

\- Katrina – find bint, warn her? Threaten nerds?  
\- Birthday House Party – spend more time with Niblet, if that fails remember magic sword   
\- Suvoloute eggs – refuse delivery or accept and destroy immediately? Look up what destroys Suvoloute demons.  
\- Talk to Xander about cold feet, threaten beheading.   
\- Nerd cameras! One in magic shop, possibly one in crypt.   
\- Do not get drunk near Anya. Pretty much ever.  
\- ??  
\- First Evil starts killing baby slayers. Give Rupes heads up?  
\- Find that scythe thing   
\- Find that amulet thing  
\- Die  
\- Call when you get to LA (Have Fred call)

There were gaps in that. It wasn’t a very long list, thinking back on two years of craziness. Still, this was the highlights, the most important things. Right?

He added “Mind your mental health” to the list. But it was always on the list, wasn’t it, since the soul? Angel had no idea how hard he worked at keeping things calm inside. Which was a laugh-riot because Angel should be the only one who did understand. He supposedly went through the same thing, except broodier.

Spike chewed his pencil. He was missing something big, he was bloody sure of it.

The door to the crypt banged open. Spike closed his book and slid off the tomb lid. He heard footsteps, but saw nothing. He felt a presence circle him and… 

This time he recognized her footsteps. Her scent was clean, it would have been easy to miss if he hadn’t cleaned up. Invisible Buffy. Oh. This was that time. Was he ready for this? "Buffy? Love?"

Her hands were hard, sharp points of strength throwing him across the room. He hit with a lung-clearing smack and felt his shirt tear from him. It reminded him of Pavayne, sharply and suddenly. Being stripped, being controlled. His muscles tensed and he reached to push her off of him, but misjudged where she was. It felt like his hands passed through her. “Buffy, wait.”

“I told you,” Buffy said, her invisible mouth hot and insistent against his. “Stop trying to see me.”

And then he was weightless again, flying through the room to land on his back. There was panic in him. It felt like assault, even though he knew better. He saw his chair tumble onto its side and then felt her weight land on him.

He slapped skin and felt after it, getting a layout of her. She grabbed his wrists and pinned them. How had he found this sexy before? He smelled her arousal and felt panic. “No,” he said. “Love… no.” 

She stilled. He felt her breathing. Felt her thighs, felt her pushing him down. “No?” Softer, “You don’t want me?” The heat of her moved away, a sudden absence. He felt cold. “But you said…”

Bollocks. He reached like he was playing blind man’s bluff. “Buffy, love, you know this isn’t normal. Look at you. Or, well—"

The punch dazed him. He hit the little makeshift bookcase. She was doing this on purpose, wasn’t she? Destroying his things. He tried to get to his feet before she hit him again, but invisible she was nowhere and everywhere, a web of woman, all hot jabs of flesh, hair, spittle. “You’re rejecting me?”

He stopped struggling. He had to. Oh god, if he hurt her... “No. Never. Of course not.” He tried to show her with his body, to press into her, open himself. He arched against teeth sinking into his neck and felt her grind against him. “Yes, love. All yours. You don’t… you don’t even have to ask.” He watched his belt unfastening. This was terrible. She'd feel he wasn't hard. He tried to find her hands, take hold of them, give himself time. “I wish I could see you,” he said. “See you want me.” There, he successfully licked a sweaty finger. She laughed.

He wished he wanted her back. Why couldn’t he just fake it? Hadn't he faked it a few times in his day? When Darla or Angelus needed convincing or when he was too injured and Drusilla couldn’t understand. 

She was so close, her hot hands. He wrestled her, managed to pin her a moment, but it was like pinning a cloud. He could see her move and she was flipping him onto his back. He rolled, got his feet under him and ran. He tried to make it seem like a pretend thing, playful, urging her on, but Christ he had to get hard of she’d really hate him. Hate herself, maybe. How useless was he?


	5. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More invisible sex! Spike has conflicted feelings. In a pleasant remix of the previous chapter, this one starts dark and turns light. 
> 
> Light-ish.

How useless could he be? 

The thought sent a tendril of something sick and dark through Spike, and it worked. By the time Buffy's invisible hands threw him to the ground again, he was hard, of course he was. He was a shameless traitor to himself. Self-loathing was almost his super power. All he had to do was hang on to the anger at himself, push it forward, strain into it. Buffy grew gentler as he gave in, when he did what she wanted. 

Yeah, thoughts like that. 

Her anger melted away into caresses, playful giggles and kisses that were almost loving, almost genuine, if only he could believe them. 

He could keep it light and fun, but he knew she wouldn’t like that, so he teased her, denied her, and let her fists set the pace. They felt like darts, like bolts, like arrows.

He was ruining his own memory. It had been fun, the original invisible sex party. A novelty. And it had confirmed that she wanted him, that their first time hadn’t been a fluke, but now that first time was five hundred aching nights ago and he couldn’t see her face to know if he was doing anything right.

He tried to remember what he had done, and copy that. He had so many memories, so many hard lessons in pleasing her, he didn’t need to see to know where to press and how hard and how long. He could tell he was going too slow, too gentle for her, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet violence with violence, not without her eyes to reassure him. Let him know he wasn’t crossing any lines. He felt her ear against his, and saw his cock jutting into nothing, shivering and flexing with her motions.

He couldn’t see himself without her eyes. He felt less real than ever. Had she ever seen him? He was imagining himself fucking her as he was fucking her. Superimposing an image of what it had been like, in his memory, glossed up for nostalgia. It wasn't the first time he'd imagined himself kissing her while kissing her, feeling her while feeling her.

The familiarity was its own sort of failure.

She came, screaming through his skin clenched in her invisible teeth, exactly as she had the first time he'd been here and like that time, he carried her down to the bed to show her what it felt like slow and easy. The first time, he'd been almost too overjoyed to feel it, anxious to please her so much she'd come back for more. This time, he felt like a whore.

With his eyes closed, he could feel her and smell her and hear her, convince himself this was what he wanted, that HE was wanted.

“Don’t.” She gasped. “Don’t close your eyes.”

“Why, love?” He loved that she didn’t stop him from calling her that when they were going at it.

He loved the touch of her sweaty hand on his cheek. “I want to see your eyes.”

He nodded, tight. He bit his lip and concentrated on the compressed wrinkles in the bedspread beneath him. The hollow that defined the back of her head. Proof she was here. He was being foolish, thinking too much. Buffy was here, she chose to be here, and she did see him, saw him in uninterrupted glory. She might not love him, but she had always loved his body.

He hoped she saw love in his eyes. He hoped she loved seeing love in them, even if she couldn’t normally admit it. He imagined her face suffused with pleasure, relaxed, unselfconscious. She was so firm and tight around him, like a second skin, like a tiny piece of heaven he could only enter partway. 

He could taste completion, it was just ahead of him, just inside the sweet lips he could brush with his own, when he heard Xander. “What the hell are you doing, Spike?”

Bloody HELL not again.

Buffy tensed, oh those slayer muscles when startled! Then she giggled. How did Xander not hear that? Spike sighed and played his role. “What does it look like, you nit? I’m exercising.”

Two firm push-ups, accompanied by very appreciative noises from Buffy, a subtle slide out, and he turned to face the music.

He gave Xander his most bored, impassive face, though he was secretly relieved, and dismayed, and angry and... he was all the emotions, all at once.

And Buffy was wrapping her legs around him, squeezing him from behind. Bollocks, what had Xander just said? He was pointing up. Oh, right. "So you've come to criticize my housekeeping?"

"No, I'm looking for Buffy."

Should he cover for her? Was that morally right? Damn but she knew every ticklish spot. Bloody genius with her fingernails. He coughed and tried to subtly fend her off. "Haven't seen her."

"You wouldn't. She's come down with a slight case of invisible."

"And... that would be bad?” He cleared his throat and turned his head just a bit so Buffy would know he was talking to her, “This invisibility isn’t just some fun romp without consequences? There's some vital, important reason she needs to be found?"

Xander narrowed his eyes. Did he notice the gooseflesh all along Spike's arm? "Yes. Obviously."

The tickling was getting to Spike. He forgot how playful Buffy could be. How young she really was. He tried to push her away without looking like he was pushing her away. He pretended he was stretching. "Right. If I run into her, I'll let her know you're looking for her." He couldn't help adding, "After my exercises." and bit his lip at Xander's blanch. 

Xander shook his head and headed to the door, pausing to say, “All kidding aside, Spike, you really need to get a girlfriend.” 

Spike sighed and relaxed. Buffy squirmed around him, all invisible and energetic. He closed his eyes. 

“Hey,” she said.

Right. He opened his eyes and tried to guess where her face was. “You heard what he said. Best you get back.”

“What's with the pretending to be responsibility guy,” she said, and poked his stomach, which was cute. “They'll hardly miss me.”

"Don't want you to get hurt. Maybe this invisibility is dangerous. Couldn't bear to lose you again." The thought of it made the air leave his lungs. He felt the curve of her hip, her warmth under his hands. There but not there. No wonder he was losing his mind. Christ, he needed a drink.

He stood up, feeling her hands slide away from him. His skin tingled with the anticipation of her touch. She was always potentially touching him and so his nakedness was tender, ever-present. He poured himself an overflowing shot of bourbon. "There's no such thing as something without cost. This invisibility is fun for you, but there's a price, I guarantee."

"So what? I'm done being whatever anyone wants me to be. I feel, for the first time since I can remember… I'm... I'm free."

A flutter of the sheet flying off the bed. There she was, coming up behind him, warmth felt before the touch. He poured another shot. He couldn't pressure her. Couldn't warn her without pressuring her. "You deserve to be free." He tried to guess where her face was, to look at her, but Christ, he could be talking over her left shoulder.

Her hands were hot enough to scald him, sliding up his front. "I thought we were having fun."

"Yes, petal." He turned into her embrace, searched the emptiness for her. "All we've ever done is have fun. Right?"

He could feel her hip slide under his hand. He mapped her back and her side. "But I think there's a reason you have to go back, love. Think you'll vanish completely if you don't."

He felt her drawing him back toward the bed, her hands hard, insistent, strong. "Maybe I don't want to be the slayer anymore. Maybe I deserve a break now and then."

They hit the bed, and he toppled onto her. He wondered at the strange shadows, looking like he was floating, feeling her pressed against him, feeling her power. How long did they have until the invisible whatsit turned her to goo? Could they risk another go? He carefully disentangled himself from grasping legs and arms. “You don’t get it; you don’t have to sneak. I’m the invisible one.” 

She pushed him back and he let her. “Then how come I can see you? All your nummy bits.” Oh… oh bloody hell that was his nipple in her teeth… 

“You see, petal, no matter what you… gah…” she’d straddled him, slipping him back inside her efficiently, bringing warmth back to cooling flesh. Yes, that's where he belonged. Inside her, forever. Nowhere else. He felt a warmth and a fulfillment he couldn't express. “No matter what we do, they’ll never see me. So just… oh love do that again… aah… so yeah… do… do whatever you want, love. You could tie me naked to your bedpost, they’d assume it was for a good, virtuous reason. Oh god, how I wish I could see you now.”

He felt her lift, felt her press and squeeze hard against him. “Well you can’t. Neener neener.” So tight, so demanding, pressing with impossible urgency against him. She kissed his nose, and he spilled helplessly into nothingness.

And died, and came alive again to her slumped bonelessly against him. Soft, warm, snoozing against his arm. His heart squeezed, for all he couldn't see her. This was what he most missed: her at her most vulnerable. The beauty of holding another body, neither asking for anything.

So of course that's when Willow magicked herself to the foot of the bed.

Spike sat bolt upright and felt Buffy react, grabbing tight to him. "Bloody hell, witch!"

Willow frowned and looked down, as though she expected some sort of footnotes in front of her. "I did a location spell on Buffy."


	6. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike has a morning-after confab with Willow. Remember back when Spike got Dawn from Rack's ahead of schedule? Things have changed as a result of that.

Spike tried to push Buffy off, toward the ladder. He felt her belatedly take the hint. "Ahem, uh … if Buffy were here, don't you think I'd know? Was just down for some kip."

Willow was blushing fetchingly, a hand in front of her face. Oh, right. He hurriedly moved the sheet up over his todger (now Buffy was off it.)

Willow frowned and patted her pockets. "The location spell should be accurate up to five feet... we need her right away. The invisibility... over time it breaks down the molecular structures. You get... gooey."

"I hope, wherever she is, she hears that," Spike said, as loud as he thought he could get away with, "Hate for the slayer to get gooey. Sounds medically problematic." He made more little shooing motions. Did Buffy see that? Was she leaving?

Willow pulled a note from her pocket. "Hang on, I'm re-casting."

"Well, I wish you luck. Of course, I have no idea where she could be." More shooing gestures. Fuck, where was Buffy now? He felt the traces of her hands on his chest, but that was memory. Spike got up, knowing it would make Willow avert her eyes. It did, and she fumbled her spell gesture. He poured himself another drink. “I sure hope, wherever Buffy is, she’s knows you’re about to find her.”

Christ he was playing to the cheap seats.

Willow turned her back on him and waved her hand over her paper. “No, she’s here. She’s right here.” 

When he looked over his shoulder, Willow was gone in a crackle of magic. He threw back the shot and fell onto the bed, exhausted.

From the top of the crypt, he heard Willow say something complex and declarative, then shout, “AH! Buffy! You’re naked!”

“You can see me?”

“Why are you naked?”

“I was invisible! Don’t turn people visible without asking!”

“Hang on, let’s … I can get us home. Return spell. Volveria!” 

A sharp whiff of magic, and silence. Spike covered his eyes. This … this was fine. No way Willow would put two and two, being two naked people, together, not a well-known mental lightweight like her. 

Honestly, he didn’t care. Out in the open would be good, better. Buffy would have to face up to her feelings. He felt sleep creeping over him, welcome after all that exertion. Until a thought prodded him awake like a sharp poke: Buffy could dump him over this. He sat bolt upright. Had he succeeded in being engaging but not clingy? Had he made Buffy feel good and want to come back? Even if her friends knew?

Should he go after her? Wait for her to come to him?

He put his dirty clothes back on and went upstairs to set things more or less to rights. He felt filthy. Some of that was actual filth, floor grime in sweat, and some of it was … best not dwelled on. He couldn’t very well have pushed her away. Poor girl was hanging on by a thread. He just needed a shower. He picked up his towel and soap and looked across the moonlit cemetery to the caretaker’s shed. Another cold shower. He shivered. Maybe he should go straight to Xander and ask to move in.

Oh, that would go over great.

He sat down a moment, just to rest his eyes, and woke up to sun filtering in on his still destroyed room. Well, now he needed a shower AND it was too sunny to get to the shed. He found his journal, splayed open. He smoothed the pages and saw his list.

Find Katrina and warn her. Who did he think he was, bloody Sam Spade? He didn’t even know the bint’s last name and doubted she was listed in the yellow pages as “Warren’s Ex.”

General helplessness gripped him. He sat on the edge of his over-turned chair. Was he helping Buffy or hurting her? Had he done anything since wishing himself into the past but cock things up and brood?

The next item on the list was “Spend more time with Dawn.” Well, that was something he could do.

And if big sis wasn’t home, he bet he could connive his way to a hot shower.

***

Spike made the mad dash through the back door, got his blanket off and patted his hair, which was smoldering.

Then he straightened his lapels and looked up at… Willow. “Oh, hi, Red. Listen… no hard feelings, right?”

She squinted at him. “There would be hard feelings somehow?” She continued on the journey he had interrupted, walking to the cutting board on the island. She gathered up chopped herbs with two hands. 

The smell was just off from mint. Medicinal. “Making soup?”

“Spell,” Willow said, and carried her green handfuls into the living room.

“Uh…” Spike followed after her. “About that. All the appearing and disappearing last night. I thought you were giving up the mojo.”

She gave him an odd look and knelt in front of the fireplace. Candles and a wooden bowl were arrayed on the hearth. “Give it up? Why? Don’t look scared, this is a harmless luck spell. To help Buffy find a job.”

Spike was the slowest kid in the class. Dawn hadn’t been injured, so Buffy hadn’t put her foot down. Probably did some bollocks like make Willow promise to stick to ‘white’ magic. Like there were such nice distinctions. The real problem wasn't what she did, but the power, the drug of controlling others.

He watched Willow sprinkle herbs around the bases of the candles and mumble Greek. He felt so helpless. “Listen, I heard you, and Buffy, upstairs last night.”

She dusted her hands, reached into a little box on the floor and held a bundle of tied herbs toward him. “Can you hold this?”

“Not if lives depended on it.”

Narrowed eyes, all cute young lady on the surface, but he knew better than to touch a witch’s herbs. She tossed the little bundle aside. “If you heard anything that would embarrass Buffy, I think you should forget it.”

“Or you’ll make me forget it?”

Her look was steady and not reassuring. Spike decided the better part of valor was changing the subject. “What about Dawn? Niblet still sore at you for not taking her to the movies?”

Willow mumbled a word and the candles flared to life. “Dawn’s fine. Ask her yourself.”

Spike went to the base of the stairs. “Dawn? Dawn!”

After a few minutes, she appeared. “What? Did everyone leave again?”

He relaxed. That was something he’d forgotten he carried with him – even since before the soul – this anxiety for Dawn. Post-soul, it was less self-centered. He wasn’t anxious because of how it would make him feel. He was anxious because she was a young girl with no super powers surrounded by monsters.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you for ice cream.”

She tossed her long hair. “I’m doing homework. Anyway, Willow’s here. It’s not like they need you to look after me.” She crossed her arms expectantly.

“Can’t I want to hang out with you without someone summoning me to play bodyguard?”

“Not usually,” Dawn replied.

Ouch. Spike leaned back to see Willow in the living room. The smoke smelled itchily of magic now. “Willow’s casting a spell. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Uh… Spike? She’s Willow. It’s what she does.”

He searched her face for a hint of betrayal, frustration. She was just… calm. “What about the other night? When she was supposed to take you to the movies, yeah?”

Dawn frowned. “What, last summer, when that demon attacked and we missed out on seeing X-Men?”

Spike had forgotten about that particular Dawnie meltdown. He’d snuck her in to a late show via breaking the lock on an emergency exit. Good times.

But this meant that Dawn didn’t remember her more recent disappointment. Had Willow vanished more memories? “What about the fact that she took you to a skanky warlock’s parlor?”

Teen huff of theatrical annoyance. “What skanky warlock? What are you talking about? I actually care about my homework, Spike.”

This was hopeless. Dawn clearly didn’t remember. No broken arm, no harm done, just Willow controlling everyone. What did you even do, to keep someone from the dark side? Spike cleared his dry throat. “Well, you know, if you want to do anything? Later?”

Dawn frowned at him. “Uh … sure.” She shook her head and went back up to her room.

Spike watched Willow sprinkle more herbs, watched them flare up, glow and die. She sighed with satisfaction and for a moment, her eyes glowed.

He sat on the edge of the coffee table and leaned forward, to talk as closely and quietly as possible. “I’m not … not accusing and you know I’m a gentleman, right? I don’t go spreading a lady’s secrets.”

She gave him a look that was uncomfortably knowing. “But you want to know why Buffy was in your place, naked.”

“I … uh… yeah.”

Willow shrugged. “She said it felt neat, to be naked. No visibility, no need for clothes.” Willow was being too airy. There was an amused glint in her eye, a dimple showing on her cheek. 

“And … uh … she just happened to want to be naked around my crypt?”

Those dimples deepened and Willow started sweeping the ashes up. “I’m not a dummy, Spike. You KNEW she was there.”

Bollocks. How did he ask without saying too much? “You know how I feel about Buffy, yeah? And, if there were anything … compromising … I would, that is to say I wouldn’t…”

She gave him a pitying look and rescued him from verbal incontinence. “Did she know you knew? I don’t think so.” She packed her candles neatly on a tea tray. “But I saw you POSING. And you know, just because it was your crypt doesn’t mean it had anything to do with you. Not in a like-the-Spike way. Though maybe, maybe she was there for the view.” How could she be so powerful and have such an innocent blush? Willow got the last of the spell items onto the tray and picked it up. “Don’t read too much into it. She was enjoying being invisible, snooping.”

This … maybe could work. Spike nodded. “Right. Uh … I’ll shut up about it, then.”

Willow stood, all the blush and smile gone, as well as the youthful innocence. She regarded him with the serious stare of a dark priestess. “Do that, because one word to Buffy, and I will erase your memory.” Then she carried her pile of goods back to the kitchen.

Stake him with a redwood.


	7. Wedding Favors and Doublemeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike reaches out to Xander and Anya and gets proactive. 
> 
> A much more upbeat chapter, this. :D

Xander opened the door to reveal a surprise vampire. Only not that surprising, considering how miserably his night was going. “World of no.”

Spike still had one fist raised to knock. He lowered it. “Invite me in.”

“That was the question I was anticipating with the ‘world of no’. Go away.”

Spike rolled his head back. “I’m here to talk, berk. It’s important and it’s not like I could bite you, anyway.”

“Putting up with you as a roommate once was plenty for a lifetime,” Xander said. “There is no way I am ever—“

Anya walked by, carrying a bridal magazine. “Oh hi, Spike. Come in!”

And there was the smuggest vampire grin ever. Anya, oblivious, curled up on the sofa by the reception plans. She laid some new magazine pages on top of the ones already spread over the sofa cushions. “We’re running out of time to pick the centerpieces. The caterer’s options are all out of our budget. I was thinking there might be something in the Magic Shop inventory that would work, maybe with lace?”

Xander closed the door. “Anya? Darling? What have we discussed about evil undead things?”

Spike gloated his way over to the sofa. “Don’t talk down to your missus.”

“Really not your business.”

Anya waved a hand from behind her bridal magazine. “It’s our adorable running joke. He sarcastically reminds me to not do things we never discussed and I ignore him. Do you think fertility fetishes would be too on the nose? We have twenty in stock. I wouldn’t want the guests to take them, though. Xander’s family is fertile enough.”

“Right,” Spike clapped his hands. “I’ll get right to the point. Did you know Willow’s still doing magic?”

Xander resigned himself to being in this conversation, which at least was a break from considering candles and lace samples all morning. “’Still’ as in she shouldn’t be?”

Spike gave him such a glare. “Well, yeah. Going power-mad, isn’t she? And Buffy put her foot down after… oh bollocks.” Spike ran his hands over his head. “Forget all that. I’m just saying we need to watch out. Willow’s getting awfully used to having her way. She robbed our memories, remember? That time with the deerstalker hat?” Spike mimed a hat over his head. Like that was an important detail Xander could forget. “She’s still doing it. She did it to Tara, and Dawn, and rather than heading for a good twelve-step program I walk in to find her fixing up a ‘find Buffy a better job’ spell.”

Ah, so that was it. Xander folded his arms and leaned against the back of the couch. “And we wouldn’t want that. A financially-secure Buffy is a less-vulnerable-to-sinister-attraction Buffy.”

“Is that what you think of me? That I’m only interested in hurting the woman I love?”

“Your sick stalker crush isn’t love.”

Spike snarled, “Right. Because you know all about it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Spike looked like it meant something, but he backed off, scowling. “Demons can love. Just ask your intended.”

“It’s true,” Anya said, annoyingly relaxed and chipper despite the evil dead thing in their living area. “I mean, I was always more focused on my career, but I could have fallen in love before I became human. If I had a dollar for every vengeance demon who fell for a wish-maker…”

Xander bent over the sofa close to Anya. “You’re supposed to be on my side here.”

“Well, I am, in most things.” Anya kissed his cheek. “But he’s right about demons being capable of love. I mean, I don’t know if he has really developed a proper understanding relationship with Buffy, specifically, but then, it really isn’t a straight-up stalker situation anymore, that I can tell. Perhaps we’re providing a good role model for healthy behavior?”

Xander was all alone on this. He turned back to Spike. “You delivered your not-a-warning about Willow. Now get out.”

“Fine.” He suddenly jabbed a finger at Anya. “But you’d better marry that girl, mate. If you bloody know what’s good for you.”

And then he stormed out.

Xander shook his head. “What the heck was that about?”

Anya sat up, staring at where Spike had slammed the apartment door. “Did that sound like an ominous I-know-the-future type warning about our marriage?”

One thing he was learning was that Anya rarely picked her oddly specific examples at random. “Why would Spike know the future?”

Anya blinked, slow and caught-out, then set about tidying her stacks of magazines. “Why would I know that he knows the future?”

“AHN!”

She fluttered over to the counter and set about tying the favor bundles, which was her favorite thing to do when stressed out, lately. “Maybe he doesn’t approve of unmarried co-habitation. He was Victorian.”

That, Xander had to admit, was plausible.

***

Buffy had many fears about the world behind the fast food counter, but one thing she did not expect to find there was Spike.

Spike. In ridiculous orange stripes, holding a spatula. 

Buffy felt like her brain was going to melt. “What are you doing here?”

Cue most sarcastic vampire face. “Obviously, I thought I’d look dead sexy in this hat.” He waggled his spatula. “I’m working the grill until close.”

“How? Why? What?”

The lighting and costume were doing nothing for his complexion. He looked almost like he was made of wax. Sarcastic wax. His eyes were their brightest blue, though, high contrast as they rolled. He flipped four patties and turned back to count on his fingers at her. “One. You need money. Two. You won’t take money from me that was ill-gotten. Ergo, three, I need a job.”

Buffy shook her head. “Why?”

He shrugged fluidly. “They don’t do background checks so my fake green card worked.”

“Not why here I mean why get a job at all?”

“So you won’t have to.” He turned back to the burgers, shifting the done ones off. “This job’d kill you. It’s beneath you.” Softer, so soft she bet he didn’t know she heard, he added, “Not me. Nothing’s beneath me.”

Buffy felt her heart squeeze. Fortunately, Manager Manny came to the rescue. “Hey now, no time to socialize!”

It wasn’t like Buffy wasn’t distracted already with the dread of working fast food, but now, as she was trying to learn the ropes, she had to keep looking back at the grill, at Spike slouching there like he was too cool for his clothes – which he was.

The freaky thing was, he kept his distance. She was tensed for the entire eight-hour shift, waiting for him to make a lewd comment. He didn’t. He flipped burgers. He took one fifteen-minute break and came back smelling like cigarette smoke. Was he smelling her? Did he smell her sweat under the unbreathable polyester? Did her butt look flat in these pants? Was he looking? Ugh. She didn’t want to have to care if he looked.

Buffy got off before he did – as he’d said, he was working to close.

She was thrilled to have survived her first stint of fast food working and desperate to shower off the grease smell and lay down. Her feet hurt bad – was there something magic about how hard the floor was in there? But she had to stay and wait. She couldn’t just go home and leave him there all… unexplained.

She paced the area by the employee’s entrance, then walked part-way home, then wondered if he’d go out the front, since that was closer to Restfield, and ended up running in to him at the cemetery entrance. The orange shirt was unbuttoned all the way down, poking out like a secret between leather duster and black t-shirt.

He gave her this sad look. “Shouldn’t you be home?”

“I don’t need you to help me,” she said. “And I won’t accept money from you.”

“You don’t have to need it, or accept it,” he replied, stepping close like it was a challenge. “It’s a gift. Throw it away if you like.”

“That makes no sense. You make no sense.”

“No, what doesn’t make sense is you’re drowning and you won’t grab a lifeline because you don’t like the hand holding it.”

His eyes got so sharp when he narrowed them, like cut glass. Buffy felt horrible and judged. She found somewhere else to look. “I don’t want to… I can’t owe you that much.”

He laughed. The jerk actually laughed! Then his face softened. “Can’t owe me anything, love,” he said. “You already own me.”

“Stop that. I don’t own you. I didn’t ask to.”

He did that head-tilt thing. He was smiling like he knew she was seconds away from ravaging him. Which she was NOT. Her feet hurt too much.

“All right, slayer. What do you want me to do? Just ask.”

“Quit the job.”

A slow blink. “Done.”

Well, good. She turned toward home. Dawn was probably wondering why she wasn’t there yet.

She felt him follow. “Give me something, though. Anything.”

“You’re disgusting and I’m exhausted. There will be no… something.”

He groaned. “Not that. I mean give me something to do. Some way I can help you. You already know you can point me at any demon and I’ll punch until you say stop. How is this any different?”

Because it was. He acted like he didn’t have any power in the relationship, but he had all of it! His power was in giving in. He always gave in first and so it was he who decided when and where things happened. She couldn’t yet figure out how to steal some of that power back for herself.

Just when she thought maybe he’d given up on talking, he asked in a soft voice, “Would it make your life easier if I went away?”

The thought of him not being there was horrible. She stopped in her tracks. He stopped too, that respectful two steps behind. And waited. His waiting hurt, somehow, like he was dragging her through all the horrible possibilities.

Then he took her off the hook. He closed the distance, reached for her hand, stopped himself before he touched her, and said, “You don’t have to give me anything.”

There, see? He gave in. Again. And so he won. His shoulders drooped and he turned away, but he won.

Buffy had to stop him. Stupidly she blurted, “Could you pick Dawn up from school? I mean… it would help to know there was always someone there for her in the afternoon.”

His face lit up. “Every day,” Spike said. “Count on it. Oh, and FYI, there's no actual meat in the Doublemeat, and the scary old lady customer with a bad wig is a demon who eats people.” He paused like he was trying to remember something then shrugged. "Nope, that's it. Cheers."

"Wait... how do you know all that?"

He gestured wide. "Vampire."

And then he left her continue on her own, and somehow even that felt like he won.


	8. A Real Challenge: Relating to Teenagers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike picks Dawn up from school and finds buddy-time isn't as easy as it used to be.

Spike was sure that with his little tip, Buffy would have the Doublemeat monster sewn up before the lunch rush. 

So what if Willow was not quite over her dark phase. Dawn's arm was un-broken, and Buffy had agreed to let him do something for her. He was on a bloody roll. 

Picking Dawn up from school was brilliant. Spike should have thought of it himself. First, it let him keep tabs on Red – though he would have to handle that situation like the leaking drum of toxic waste it was. First priority was not giving the mighty powerful witch reasons to cast in his direction. He’d bide his time for a nice, delicate opening to raise moral questions without being turned into a frog, or dust, or a dusted frog.

Secondly, he got to help Buffy – really help her – and spend more time with Dawn, making her less lonely and hopefully preventing any wish-related fiascos.

Thirdly, hot showers. CHRIST, yes.

He saw Dawn come out of the school with a gaggle of her friends and give a sort of slump when she saw his car. Oi. The Desoto was a classic! Surely it was much more “my cool bodyguard” than “my lame sitter”?

Spike cracked the window as much as he dared. “Come on, not sitting here for the sunshine.”

So with a sigh, Dawn came forward, saying good-bye to most of the kids. That snotty one, Janice, she hung with her. And then, to Spike shock, both girls piled in the back seat.

Spike gaped at the two of them in the rear-view mirror. “This isn’t a taxi service, you know.”

“Her house is on the way, Spike. It’s not terrible.”

Janice picked at the paint on the window. “It kind of is. Like, how long since any of this was washed? Are cars supposed to smell like this?”

“It’s paint.” Spike scowled and slammed the car into gear. “I have a skin condition.”

He peeked back. The girls had their heads close together, whispering and conferring over some notebook. So much for his imagined private conversation time. A little mentoring. Being the big bad brother. 

He also had a bad feeling Janice didn’t buy the skin condition excuse. 

So he dropped her off as fast as possible and sped to the Summers’ home. “I’ll get the door,” Dawn said, slipping out almost before the car stopped.

She opened the front door for him so he wouldn’t be in the sun so long! She did care!

Spike dashed in and took a blissful hot shower while Dawn did… whatever she did fresh after school. He came down to find her eating sugary cereal out of the box. "We're out of milk," she said, like it was his job to grocery shop.

Which he supposed, if he was careful and did it when Buffy wasn't around to object, it could be. "I'll pick some up after dark." He snatched the box from her. "Don't spoil your dinner."

She rolled her eyes at him and finished off the handful in her hand. He sniffed the box contents. Smelled like the stuff was half cardboard. "So what do you want to do until big sis gets home? Movie? Play gin rummy?"

"I'm not a kid anymore, Spike. You don't have to keep my occupied." Like it had been more than a year ago! He watched disbelieving as she trotted up to her room. "I've got homework."

"Well, uh... do it," he shouted up the stairs. This was the kid who was going to magic them all stuck in the house because of how alone she was feeling?

He supposed it was the sort of thing you didn't feel all the time? He carried the cereal back into the kitchen and looked around, wondering if there were anything he even knew how to do in a kitchen.

The back door opened and Willow walked in, laughing over her shoulder at some skinny blonde Spike didn't recognize. "I don't suppose you brought any milk," he muttered, a touch more angrily than he meant. 

Willow's pupils were blown. "What are you doing here?" She smelled like magic, they both did, and the other bint was inching away from him like he was... well, okay, he was a vampire.

Spike said, "I'm here to make sure Dawn got home safe and isn't all alone in the house." 

"Well, I'm here now," Willow said airily.

The blonde leaned close behind her. "I thought we were just picking up that sage root?"

Magic. Of course bloody magic. It was setting his nose hairs on end it was so thick on the two of them. "Do you even care it's a Thursday?" Spike snapped.

A slight focus returned to Willow's eyes. "What's important about Thursday?"

"Nothing's important about Thursday. I mean it's a weekday. Slayer's working herself to death, Dawn's trying to hang on to a normal teenage life. The least you could do is be home on time for dinner rather than pretending it's Mardi fucking Gras."

Blondie whispered, "You want me to hold him while you zap him?"

"Excuse me, bint, do I know you?"

There was something definitely... squirrelly about this one. She looked left and right. "I’m Amy. You ... tried to kill me and everyone in my school on parent teacher night?"

Sharp little guilt reminder, which he didn’t need right when he was feeling on the high ground. He gritted his teeth. "Always lovely to meet another Sunnydale High alum."

Willow sighed. "Just go, Spike." She continued on her way into the house, Amy in tow.

Spike waited until he heard the witch's door shut upstairs and went up to Dawn's room. He admitted, he was a little surprised to find her actually doing homework. She looked up at him and gestured over her book. "What brings you to disrupt Biology?"

Spike slouched against the wall. Willow had erased Dawn's memory of going to Rack's filthy little boudoir. And now she was casting spells just down the corridor. "Just... thought I'd be more proactive on the bodyguarding."

"I'm not going to get hurt in my own room. Anyway, I heard Willow come home. Anyone bothers me, she'll turn them into a newt."

Spike couldn't tell her why he was worried. He couldn't tell anyone. And if he made himself Willow's enemy? Would he even know what she did to him? "Humor me, Niblet. I'm feeling all protective and anxious. It's an old man thing."

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes. "Can you be protective and quiz me on the parts of the cell?"

Grateful, he sank onto the bed and held a hand out for the book. "Better not be blood cells, I'll drool all over your book."


	9. The Old Normal?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike has concerns about The Chip and its presence or absence, but ends up sidetracked by Buffy

Spike left as soon as it got dark. His back teeth itched being close to so much magic, though from the sound of it, Willow and Amy were just making drunk calls to the spirt plane.

At least he was pretty sure he heard them prank-call Houdini's ghost. Poor bastard.

This was still fine, though. He'd be there every day now, or most days, when Buffy worked second or third shift, and he could keep tabs on the Willow situation until such time as he had to act on it. At least he didn't have the chip anymore, right?

His steps froze. Didn't he? He'd woken up covered in bruises his past self had received. Did that mean his soul and memories had been transferred, but this was his past body?

Put a pin in all the plans. He needed to find a human to punch.

Spike pivoted sharply, changing course from his home crypt to Sunnydale's downtown. There were bound to be a few punters out late. Didn't even have to be a fight. He could shoulder check some bloke on the sidewalk. That'd be plenty to work. He worked into a good swagger as he crossed into the business district. He took a deep breath, smelling for fresh traces of booze and testosterone.

And got a good solid whiff of hamburger grease and slayer. His stomach tightened and he had a momentary desire to flee. Come back later, when he wasn’t making a hash of everything. But then she was there, looking small and defeated and helpless and his heart broke clean through. Which is why he just stood there like a pillock as she approached.

She stopped a few feet away, hugging herself. "Hey."

He coughed. "Uh... Dawn's tucked in for the night. Willow brought some blonde home with her, name of Amy. They were doing some magic bollocks but it didn't look dangerous. Thought I'd swing through downtown, see if there were any baddies needed career counselling via fist."

He saw the tension bleed from her, her arms loosen, her head raise. "Sounds fun. Wanna start with Green Street?"

He nodded and let her lead the way. 

Bollocks. The warehouse district was going to not be prime human-finding territory. But how could he refuse when she looked so relieved?

Soon after passing the last open store on Green they encountered three vampires harassing a young couple, who ran for it as soon as Buffy kicked the leader.

It was a great dust-up, the three vampires fought with desperate ferocity, and once Spike actually felt afraid, but soon enough the last one turned into ash in his hands as he ripped his head off, and then he found his arms full of Buffy. Soft lips and urgent hips, his hands fell naturally around her and it felt as normal as breathing.

He'd worried, after the invisible tryst, that he wouldn't be ready the next time, but here he was, ready and delighted, and she was just how he remembered her. She pulled back for breath, and her eyes saw his. He knew they did. He cleared his throat. "My place?"

"Fast," she responded, and squeezed him tight. 

They laughed and chased and he could almost believe this was a healthy relationship. Maybe it was. She was hurting, but not all the time. And if there was something desperate in the way she tore at his clothes, wasn't that what passion was supposed to be? Raw need, beautiful and pure. No secrets.

They tumbled through his door and he barely fought her off long enough to shut it behind them. She knocked him into the recently repaired end table which collapsed like a cardboard box. From that point on, it was a race, a game, a fight to keep even with her, to give as good as he got.

***

Hours later, he groaned, exhausted after their last, most languorous coupling. This was the weariness of a job thoroughly well done. His arse felt like he'd done a marathon entirely in lunges and squats and his body was so warmed from her that he felt the chill as he lay back on the hard dirt floor.

Next to him, Buffy made a soft noise and peeked over the edge of the carpet that had somehow ended up above them. "We, uh... missed the bed."

"Lucky for the bed," Spike quipped without thinking, and the deja-vu hit. Was this... that time? The time that had felt like she was finally coming around to liking him, but had ended up being the beginning of the end? 

He stared at her, worried. Don't fuck this up, self. Don't push her to define bollocks. 

"I can't feel my legs," Buffy lay back. She glanced at him. "Why are you looking at me like you're trying to solve a math problem on my forehead?"

Bollocks. What to say that wasn't clingy, needy, or pushing her away? "This doesn't have to mean anything." Repeating her own line back to her. 

It didn't work. She was frowning harder. "Who said it did?"

"I just..." If he'd ever had an idea, it was gone. There was nothing in his head at all. He dived for the truth, if for no other reason than it should sound honest. "I'm terrified I'm going to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and push you away, because I know I don't deserve to be next to you." 

Her eyebrows rose. Not a good sign. She shifted on her elbows, looking around. "Have you seen my underwear?"

He bit his lip against the sudden desire to stop her, make her stay even a moment longer. That was how he'd fucked it up the first time. He cleared his throat. "I dunno... think they're upstairs, by the lamp?"

Buffy shook her head. "Isn't this the part where you try to keep me from leaving?" 

"To do that, I'd need working legs." He rolled to face her, his head on his upper arm. Her eyes were so clear, like water. He realized, suddenly and with dread, that he was lying to her. Had been lying to her since he'd fallen back into his own past. Withholding his knowledge, his very soul. It wasn't right, and wouldn't it lead to his downfall? Hadn't it always? He licked his dry lips. "Buffy..."

"I have to get home." She scrambled to her feet, startled like a deer hearing a gunshot by the look in his eyes.

He hit the back of his head against the floor, mumbling "bollocks bollocks bollocks" while she gathered her things.


	10. Together and Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A porny interlude. Spike re-writes a scene from his past.

Everyone was at The Bronze, having a good time, acting like they always did, but Buffy found herself hanging back, feeling cut off, emotionless. Like she was wrapped in cotton wool. She found a place far off, in the shadows, to watch. She wasn't surprised Spike was there, that he curled up against her as comfortable as a cloak. Like he'd been waiting, like was meant to be against her.

He kissed the skin above her ear. "Go to them, love. Be with your friends."

She shook her head, leaned back against him. He was swaying to the music and she could just... let him dance her. It was like the easiest thing. She didn't have to dance, or even support her weight, he was there, supporting her, swaying her.

Xander and Willow looked happy down there, on the dance floor, with drinks and life and liveliness.

Spike nibbled her neck, his hands comfortable on her waist. "C'mon. I'll be there. Go on."

She stared at him. He had "smug face."

"You're going to follow me... down there?"

"I told you," he said, "I'm the one who's invisible." He bumped his hips against hers, and there was some very visible evidence there of what he could do to make her a very, very happy Buffy. 

She pushed back against him, trying to give him a hint that he could make her happy right there, but he wasn't budging. He pushed her toward the stairs. “Nope. Nothing for bad slayers who stay up on the catwalk.”

She whined, an animal sound that escaped her throat without her intention.

He kissed the top of her head. "I promise. Go. Socialize. I’ll make you very happy you did." And then he did the tongue-bite thing, with the head-tilt, which in combination was almost illegal. Weapons-grade flirting. How could she refuse that?

She did a little bit want to be part of the gang again, so she let him shoo her down the stairs, and sure enough Xander and Willow saw her and waved their hands at her, and she went to them and danced to some silly, forgettable song, which was fun, but not as fun as the fun she knew she could be having if she'd stayed with Spike in the balcony. And what was that stuff about how he could be invisible? Because Spike? So visible. Neon visible.

She dropped into a seat and Willow went off to pick up their drink order and Buffy sighed, a little tired, a little sweaty, but so unfulfilled.

And then she felt a hand on her leg. She almost jumped out of her seat. No one was at the table with her. Two guys in flannel were talking excitedly at the table to her left, and a trio of girls were doing shots at the table to her right but an empty seat sat on either side of her and strong fingers were creeping steadily up her thigh. Fingers she was pretty sure she recognized by touch. Feeling obvious, she leaned all the way over to peer under the table top. There was Spike, gleaming in the dark under there, his tongue between his teeth, leering at her. How had he crawled under the table with no one noticing? That was stupid! Anyone could see him under there!

But then his cheek was against her thigh and his breath was passing through the weave of her panties like they weren't there.

She didn't mean to slump in her seat or spread her legs wider, it just happened, and he just happened to settle between her legs and lick a cool, refreshing stripe right where cotton met flesh. Oh my god. He knew just where to touch, a breath, a lick, his finger sliding under elastic, moving fabric out of the way. She could hardly breathe, her vision clouding as her awareness narrowed and focused on a nose brushing against her clit.

And Willow was setting a drink in front of her. Sitting down next to her. Didn't she see? Couldn't she feel a shoulder against her knee? Something? Xander dropped into the seat opposite, tearing the label on his beer, complaining that the band wasn't as good as last week's, while Spike's tongue was dipping into her, separating flesh from flesh with cool, firm, rough strokes.

She made a helpless cry, smacking the table, and two pairs of eyes were on her, wide, wondering. She swallowed thickly while Spike chuckled against her. "I just... thought of a joke."

"That's good, Buffy!" Willow touched her arm lightly. "You need to feel humor again."

"Mmhmm," she said, straining not to scream, not to move. Please, she thought, please leave me so I can unravel in peace. But they kept talking at her, while she tried to follow the movements of their lips and make little nods and head-shakes, while a wicked tongue was driving everything from her mind. How was he not bumping into Willow and Xander's legs? There wasn't even a table cloth. How were those people on the other side of the room not noticing? "Really?" She asked when she noticed a pause in the conversation, but she had no idea what they said because of the maddening pleasure that built and built until she wanted to scream or break something or...

Xander and Willow were getting up. Gesturing at her. She shook her head and shooed them onto the dance floor. They took forever leaving and kept glancing back. Buffy felt like she was about to crack in half. Her fingers pressed white into the table and something inside her broke open. Her vision blanked. 

How had she sat still for that? She tasted blood from her bitten-through lip. She kicked the table over and dragged Spike up, paused a scant second before kissing him and pushed him ahead of her.

He had smug-face for sure now, and sauntered while she shoved, out the door into the alleyway. "Told ya," he said, wickedly, and laughed as he fell to the ground, under her at last.


	11. Things that Sneak Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katrina's death, the alleyway, all bad stuff, but at least some Dawn POV?

Katrina’s death snuck up on him. He just bloody missed it. He knew the moment he saw her in the woods, but it was like a car crash already happening. He reached, called out, begged Buffy to hold still… and it was over and Buffy was looking at a girl lying dead and thinking she killed her. 

“That girl’s over a day dead,” Spike said. He sniffed exaggeratedly. “Buffy, love. Vampire, here. You didn’t kill her. This is a set-up.”

It didn’t work. Words never worked over action. She ran.

This time, Spike didn’t bother moving the body. He ran after her.

This time, he was sure, he had the authority to argue with her. He wasn’t the soulless seeking to understand the souled, this time. He KNEW he was right, with moral clarity.

"Turning yourself in won't solve anything. You need to find out what really happened. How she ended up in the woods with those demons."

Buffy didn’t want his moral clarity. She punched him all the same, and this time, he felt it not just in his face, but in his soul, in his pride, in his self-worth. “No, love…”

Punch.

“I’m trying to save you. Don’t you see? I’m not doing this for any reason other than…”

Punch.

Nothing in you. Soulless. Dead. He’d hated this memory, though at the time, the first time, it had an air of success… his parting gibe, that you only hurt the ones you love, he really had believed that. He’d taken it as a token of affection. Christ, he was messed in the head.

Messed enough that he still didn't fight back. Still lay there while she straddled him, still felt, somewhere deep and dirty inside him, that this was what caring felt like. The more you hurt, the more you let them hurt you, the more you love. Wasn't that what he told himself when Drusilla clawed him or took his mind and left him dressed in her knickers on a street corner? 

Like last time, just as he felt he was losing consciousness, Buffy gasped, realizing what she was doing. The tremble of her lower lip, the one-second reach forward, and she jumped off of him and ran away. He didn’t have the energy to sit up, to throw a witty rejoinder. He just stared at the sky.

Had he made a difference at all, coming back?

The thing about melodramatically lying there in your woe is that it gets boring, and you realize you look ridiculous and have to pick your idiot self up and go home. Spike slowly got to his feet, remembering from last time that he'd be too woozy to straighten all the way at first. He let the wall be his pal and support him as he limped toward the magic box.

A couple hurried down the sidewalk, clutching each other and whispering, and nearly collided with Spike. Their twin looks of horror and disgust as they shied away from him weren't new. 

It was the moment of fear he felt when they were still close.

He still didn't know if the chip was there.

Spike stiffened his spine, sniffed back blood from his nose and spat. So bloody what? He'd muddled through the first time, covering his vulnerability with bravado. He'd fought for his soul, fought for his sanity, died saving the world, and came back. He could walk to his crypt without feeling like a scared nancy.

He strode into the street and his vision greyed. Oo... after a sit-down. 

***

Dawn came down the stairs Sunday morning to find Spike on the sofa, scribbling in that little book he only looked at when he thought no one was looking. What was up with him, lately? It was like he was always around, and not just mooning after Buffy, either. She slowed her steps, to be sneaky, and made it to the bottom before he looked up. Holy heck, his face was all beat up! "What happened to you?" she blurted.

Even evil undead vampires who are a hundred years old can look offended. Way to go, inside voice on the outside. 

"Pretty obvious I got in a fight." He tucked the book away without looking at it, trying to make her not notice. She was so on to that. He cleared his throat. "So, big sis's birthday is coming up."

Dawn threw herself casually onto the couch on the side his book-pocket faced. "It's in two days. That's not 'coming up'. That's practically here."

"Riiiight. An' we both need to get gifts."

It was a pretty loose coat pocket. If he wasn't paying attention... but he was, total focus-face on her, even with all that bruising around his eyes. "How do you know I haven't gotten a gift already?" 

"I've seen you every day. If you'd gotten something you'd have insisted on showing it off." Damn. Stupid maturity and experience.

Buffy walked in with the laundry basket. Yes! Spike was instantly one hundred percent absorbed in Buffy-staring, which normally would be annoying and disgusting, but this time it meant she could reach right into his pocket. Her fingertips grazed the smooth linen cover of the book.

Buffy dropped the laundry on the coffee table in front of them. She hadn't noticed Spike yet, too busy searching through shirts. "I'm working ten to six today so we'll have a real sit-down dinner. There's a casserole all--" That was when she saw Spike, and straightened, and her eyes briefly darted to Dawn, and Dawn's hand in Spike's pocket.

Busted. Dawn carefully eased her hand back. Spike hadn't noticed. He was staring at Buffy like a mouse stares at a cat. 

"What are you doing here?" Buffy asked. 

Spike did that thing where he pretends he's sooo calm. "Thought I'd take Dawn to the mall."

"It's daylight."

"There's a covered garage behind JC Penny's."

Wow, what was this? Buffy and Spike were never best buds, but there was definitely something off in how they were avoiding looking at each other, like same-charge magnets. "Did you guys have a fight?"

Buffy and Spike both flinched back. Score one for Dawn. That was definitely a gossip-worthy flinch. "What was it about? Was it about me?"

Spike jumped to his feet. "Right, know when I'm not wanted. I'll… see you ladies around."

Dawn watched him slink off toward the kitchen like a hurt puppy. Buffy was re-folding the same shirt and turned her back to the kitchen even though it meant standing in the narrow space between the corner of the coffee table and the couch. Dawn almost couldn’t take it. She batted the shirt out of Buffy’s hands as she started re-re-folding it a third time. "Oh my god, what's the deal? You weren't this mean to him when he was evil."

Buffy look guilty, then folded her arms and put on her firm face. "He's still evil."

"Well, yeah, but it's like… diet-evil. Anyway, stop standing there like I’m going to go after him. You don't have to protect me from the undead. I have a ride to the mall with Janice and her mom."

Buffy unclenched. Good. "Anyway, casserole, tonight, seven-ish. You'll be back by then?"

"Mall closes at five. It's Sunday."

"Oh. Good. Right." Buffy picked her uniform out of the laundry and walked away, leaving the basket sitting there. 

Another day with zombie-sister. Something really was going on. Dawn was sure it was all in that book, too. She checked the time. Janice should be there soon. She went up to her room to check her look.


	12. Before the Witches Get Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike and Buffy have a wee tete-a-tete, Dawn goes to the mall, and ... yeah

Buffy knew Spike hadn't left the house. She hadn't heard the back door slam, or his usual string of curses as he dashed through the sun. With her Doublemeat shirt clutched to her chest, she entered the dining room. Sure enough, there he was, hanging back by the china cabinet. She grabbed his arm and he let her drag him into the kitchen and out the back door. 

The back porch didn't offer much shade. He shrank into the darkest corner, against the house, looking all hurt and vulnerable and how dare he look like that when he had no soul? Oh god, he looked afraid of her, and he had a right to be. Buffy felt sick, felt her elbows and knees shaking. She was a monster.

Then Spike bit his lower lip and relaxed, moving one hip forward. "You wanted to get me alone, slayer?"

Emotional whiplash. He was trying to look seductive with those bruises on his face. Didn't he even feel them? And was it at all fair that the discoloration of his skin brought out the blue of his eyes like expensive makeup? He was acting like the bruises weren't there. Dawn, back in the living room, had acted like they weren't there. Was she going crazy? Was she the only one who could see them? Buffy averted her eyes. "Stop. I can't think about you… that way… when you look like raw hamburger."

He winced. His hand hovered over his worse-off cheek. "I heal fast, love. You know that. It'll be gone before you know it."

She’d hurt him again, without even wanting to. She didn’t need her fists, it was like her whole self was a weapon. "That’s not what I … It's fine. I don't expect you to always look perfect."

"You always look perfect," he said, and he meant it, too, the way his eyes shone as he gazed at her messy hair, her greasy, makeup-less face.

Maybe Spike was the crazy one. "Why are you here, why really?"

He huffed, rolled his eyes. "To take Dawn to the mall. Really. Your birthday's tomorrow, and neither of us have presents yet."

Buffy felt heavy. "You don't have to buy me presents."

"But I want to." He reached for her hair in that way she totally didn't like, what with the adoring gaze and slightly parted lips. "You deserve the world."

She brushed his hand away and there was a brief struggle, not the sexy kind, where she hadn’t wanted to hit him and but he got in the way and she was checking to see if she’d hit him but he was also trying to, what? What was he trying to do? It was like a slap-fight almost and then they were holding hands, and he licked his lips and said, all breathy, "Anything. Just tell me what you want."

She pushed away, out into the safe sunlight.

He was bent back over the porch railing, like she’d pushed him there, but she hadn’t. Had she? Somehow, he made it look like he just happened to lean that way for comfort. He rolled his (swollen, puffy) eyes. "I didn't mean it like that. Though if sex is what you're after…"

A car horn sounded in front of the house. The front door slammed. Happy, teen girl voices. An older voice saying, "Seatbelts! Both of you." 

She hadn’t quite believed that Janice's mom was really coming to pick Dawn up. Tires crunched on gravel, hit the street. Dawn was out of the house. They were alone. And Buffy had an hour before she had to be at work. 

She looked at Spike. He looked at her. He looked adorably confused. Oh no. That was really sexy. She bit her lip and looked down, but that meant she was looking at his crotch. Bad. “I don’t… I mean… “

His fingers brushed her cheek. His chuckle seemed to come from all the way down. “Yeah, s’allright. You don’t have to mean a thing.”

Angry, she grabbed him with one hand and the back door with the other and seconds later they were on the linoleum and … mmm lips of Spike. No, no, she was mad, she was … fighting … mmm… jeans of Spike, wriggling against her. Fingers of Spike, doing wonderful things to her back.

He broke of the kiss. "Basement?"

That was a word, she vaguely recalled, but not what it meant. "Huh?"

He nudged his head to the left. "Let’s go to the basement. In case the witch comes home."

Oh. Smart Spike. Though it was weird how he said 'the witch' instead of 'the witches.' 

Getting to the basement required far too much time not kissing. First, they were stuck against the door and couldn't open it while devouring each other, then she got it open and there were stairs and they almost fell and laughed and kissed. They made it down one step and tumbled out into the kitchen again. This wasn't working. She kicked him back, he staggered, she shoved, he fell down the stairs. He landed hard, sprawled at the base of the steps. His skull made a sound on the hard floor, and for a second she thought that she'd done something wrong, but he laughed and gestured for her to hurry up. 

She landed on him and he gasped, clever fingers working up under her shirt. Clever lips nibbling her ears.

The basement had some of the same cold-damp feel of Spike's crypt, the smell of old stone. The echo of his zipper. They rolled into the pillar in the middle of the room. He squirmed deliciously against her, fighting his shirt off. She got hers off too, and it was skin on skin, and comfortable, and if she closed her eyes, she wouldn't see the bruises. 

He was inside her, where he belonged, making her feel whole and alive. Her last coherent thought as Spike drove all the worry and garbage from her mind was, "Crap. I left my uniform shirt on the back porch." 

That was a problem for an hour from now.

***

Spike's head still rang from the fall, thumping like it had a pulse in it, and how was that bloody fair? But Buffy was a warm and soft pile of satiated slayer laying against him, and when he groaned and asked, "When was it you had to leave by, love?" she didn't panic or hit him.

She groaned and snuggled closer. "Not yet."

That felt like heaven itself, like his heart would burst from his chest and fill the room, expanding, golden, perfect. He dared not move.

Was it a minute or an hour or a second? All he knew was she groaned again, got up, and scratched her hip. "Crap, it's already quarter to ten. I have to hustle." She kissed his forehead, and she padded, naked, up the stairs. 

No self-hating tirade, no him-hating tirade. She just… went about her business. He didn't want to move, ever. 

He listened to her footsteps upstairs, heard her go out the front door, and as silence descended around him, he acknowledged that the floor was turning his arse into cold paste. 

He took his time about getting up, and since no one said he couldn't, he went upstairs and took a long, lovely hot shower, with some botanical smelling shampoo that was probably Willow's. 

Maybe, just maybe, he was making a difference for the better, even if Willow was still out of control, she wasn't, as of yet, trying to destroy the world. Maybe Buffy was a tiny bit more together at this point than she had been. Maybe. 

He toweled off, got dressed again, and fished out his notebook. 

Buffy's birthday: magic sword demon - near Buffy’s house.

Right. That should be easy to tackle, he was already here. Just had to wait for night.

His leg jiggled. He hated waiting. He went downstairs to see if there was anything on the telly. He'd only just found a good re-run when Willow came in the door, with Tara, the both of them smelling of magic and recent sex. He felt his jaw clenching. Tara was too good for her.

As if to prove his low opinion, Willow said, "What are you doing here? Alone? Where's Dawn?"

"Dawn went to the mall with Janice. Buffy left for work."

"And so? You don't live here."

Tara touched Willow’s stomach. “Sweetie, be nice.”

Willow gestured with wide open eyes as if to say “I’m being nice.”

Spike huffed. "It's sunny out, innit?"

Willow rolled her wrist and suddenly a very large black umbrella was in his hand.

With a heavy sigh, Spike got up. "Fine. But only because Gilligan doesn’t get off the island in this one."


	13. Spike's Very Long Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Willow shoos him from Buffy's house, Spike runs into all manner of inconveniences, but at the end of the day, he finally scores some wins.

Willow’s magic-summoned umbrella was thick and big, and Spike grudgingly admitted it made a fine sun shield. More dignified than a blanket. Of course, dignity wasn't punk. He walked around the block, smiling sarcastically to the good little suburbanites, waiting for the sword-demon to show up. This was stupid. No demon would be lurking about in the stark light of day. Also, his shins were starting to smoke.

He dropped into the sewers at the corner with Main, which was how he found a group of demons dragging a hapless victim. They were the kind with mouths all over, which were annoying to fight. Wet teeth on your fist, wet teeth in your hair, hot breath blowing on your bollocks while you kicked them. Unsanitary. Plus, he broke the umbrella shoving it into one of their gaping maws.

Demons often raised such questions but, why? Why would anything need that many mouths? How did it sleep without tasting its pillows?

At least they died once you broke enough of their bones. Questions unanswered, jeans splattered with saliva, Spike got the would-be human snack up a ladder to safety.

It was still sunny out. That burned a bloody ten minutes of his wait for sunset. So Spike decided to go around the block, underground. The sewers ran under the east-west streets, with a few accesses north-south, so there was a sort of underground "block" to go around. 

He was about to give up and head home for a weapon when he ran into the vampires terrorizing a sanitation worker.

Christ on a bike, he forgot how tiresomely hapless Sunnydale citizens were. 

Significantly less clean than he had been, what with demon spit and vamp dust in his hair and sewage on his boots, he peeked out a manhole and found it was finally getting dusky.

So much for his shower. Well, nothing he couldn’t hose off quick when he got home. Just so long as he didn't have any worse run-ins.

He slunk from shadow to shadow as the sun took its sweet time going down. He saw Buffy come home, saw her and Dawn lit up beautiful in the dining room, sitting down to that casserole. How content and happy they looked. How normal. Spike drank it in, because it was painful, knowing the hard things they would both face, both had faced. He would do everything in his power to keep them there, in that golden light.

A growl and a thud that could have been a racoon devolved into: sword demon boy! Just how he remembered him! Now this was good. No drool, no pesky dust... a good clean opponent. Spike kicked it in the bollocks... where bollocks would be if it had any. It roared and... vanished into its sword.

Oh right.

Spike picked the sword up. Another job swiftly and easily accomplished with the benefit of afterthought. He whistled and spun the sword as he walked to the city dump.

He threw it into the first big trash pile and wiped his hands. Now there'd be time to do some dumpster-shopping for birthday presents. You never knew what you'd find in the Sunnydale dump. High death rate and all, people threw away a lot of treasures.

He was frowning thoughtfully at the first glittery thing to catch his eye - a sadly broken mirror that had a decent frame - when something shifted in the air around him. Like a storm cloud descending.

…

So, apparently magic sword-demons turn into giant garbage demons if you throw their magic sword into a garbage pile. Good bit of news to have had before now.

***

A miserable Spike limped home in the watery grey light before dawn. Should have remembered to BREAK the sword like Buffy had. Should have had slayer strength to do it in one go. Stupid... everything being just as hard the second time around.

At least he was almost home. He smelled like sour rubbish though. He ducked into the caretaker's cottage to clean up and could hardly stay awake even with the icy cold water and rough industrial soap. He laid the hose on his more bruised eye for a while, in hopes it would bring the swelling down.

Every second he dallied the sun was getting higher. Bollocks of bollocks. Whatever bollocks called bollocks.

The sun was bright enough to make him wince and squint as he opened the caretaker's door. So one last round of dash-and-hide before his sleep. Oak Tree, Gutierrez Tomb, obelisk, maple, Stokes, low wall, pear tree, home. Right. He could do this. It was just so much longer than the straight walk. He mourned the magic umbrella a moment, gathered his shirt in his hands (it was too filthy to put back on) and ran for it.

***

Spike headed straight to the mini-fridge and had just fished his last carton of blood from behind too many bottles of different beers when he heard a knock on the crypt door, which was odd. No one knocked on his door – they just kicked it in. It didn’t seem likely that the cemetery would attract solicitors. Either way, he was past exhausted. He just needed to finish this blood and go down to beddy-bye. Whoever it was could fuck off. 

The knock repeated, and Anya called out, “I know you’re in there and awake because your soap opera just ended.”

A glance at the microwave clock confirmed that, indeed, Passions would just be ending now. Chalk another one up to Anya Jenkins. Christ, he was so late going to bed, he’d be late waking up at this point! He hoped it hadn’t been a good episode he’d missed. Er, re-missed. He took a swig of the cold blood straight from the container. "Bugger off, I'm sleeping."

Rather than bugger off, they marched right in, Anya with her intended in tow. “This won’t take long,” Xander said. “Anya just has this thing in her head…”

Anya pushed forward into the room. “I tried to put it out of my mind, but I can’t. You were clearly giving an ominous warning about how our wedding will turn out. And I’ve tried keeping your secrets, but I’m not sure there’s a reason to. The more people know whatever you know about the future, the better.”

Oh. Spike looked at Xander, and saw, to his dismay, that he was taking a seat on the nearest sarcophagus, not objecting or rejecting Anya’s words.

“Well…” Spike couldn’t think of a thing to say. He closed the door. “Cat’s out of the bag. Yeah, I lived two years into the future, met a vengeance demon, stupidly wished I could come back here because I wanted to… there were things I wanted to stop from happening. So… yeah. Haven’t succeeded in changing piss so far.”

“And you said ‘you had better marry her’,” Anya poked Spike hard in the arm. “That’s what you said, like it was a threat and there was a chance he wouldn’t.”

Xander gave Spike a put-out expression. “I would never hurt Anya like that.”

Oh ironies. The things men think they won’t do. Spike sighed heavily. “Some berk, an ex of Anya’s, shows up at the wedding. Pretends he’s you from the future. Tells you it’d be terrible and you’ll have a miserable life. Buffy does her usual and uncovers the scam, but you walk out anyway.” Spike shrugged. He didn’t mind seeing the hurt on Xander’s face. Berk deserved it for leaving a woman at the altar.

“But I…” Xander shook his head. “That makes no sense. I asked her to marry me. Me. I was the asker.”

Why did Spike always end up playing agony aunt? He drained more blood and headed to the table with the booze on it. “Settle in, kids. You need to talk.”

“I’m not lying,” Xander said.

“I know you’re not.” Spike waved a shot glass toward Anya, who held up a hand in refusal. He took the bottle and sat on the other sarcophagus. He took a sip for courage. “Mate, you're scared. That’s all right. Love ought to scare you. It’s the most powerful thing there is. You’re not doing yourself any favors holding it in, though. Tell her. Tell her why you’re scared, all the stupidest reasons and the ones that don’t make sense. Get it out in the open. If you can’t do that now, well, maybe you shouldn’t get married.”

Anya hurried to take Xander’s hands. “Don’t listen to him. Of course, we should get married. If it’s me, I’ll change. I’ll be less forthright and direct. I’ll learn tact.”

Xander closed his eyes, bent forward a little, and said, “It’s not you. I’m afraid of me. Of what I’ll be like. Of being like my father.”

And bam. They started talking. “You couldn’t be. You have his example to avoid.”

“But it’s not as simple as that. I… what if I get bitter? What if I can’t support you?”

“I’m not asking you to. I can support myself, and you if I have to.”

“Yeah, but what if I can’t handle how that makes me feel?”

“Then we’ll talk about it. Or maybe the marriage isn’t forever. We’ll know when we reach that. Anyway, there’ll be orgasms.”

Xander laughed, pressing his forehead against Anya’s. Fears were like ghosts… they didn’t do well in full daylight. “Lovely. You two can stay and …. Whatever. I’m going to bed.” Spike felt, for the first time, that he might just have changed something for the better.


	14. How to Wake a Vampire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy does a bad thing. This is the chapter that made me put warnings on the fic. And made me drag my feet about posting forever.   
> But ... yeah. OK. This is the bad chapter. I promise this is as dark as it gets.

It was her birthday party tonight, so why was Buffy feeling so cut out of all the preparations? Willow had magicked up some amazing decorations. Tara was making cake. Anya and Xander wanted to invite a guy for her to meet? 

Yeah. She had to get out.

Buffy didn't head in any particular direction, but she wasn't surprised as her feet slowed outside Spike's tomb. She looked down at her evil, traitorous feet. Hussies.

Well, as long as she was here... she pushed the door open loud, in case he was doing something she didn't want to see, like eating. "Spike?" Empty room. Huh. She continued down to the downstairs.

And there he was, all laid out on new black sheets, like a debauched Achilles.

Her inner monologue had to quit with the romance. Spike wasn't some Greek hero; he just had the abs of one. He was evil. And asleep when she was in the mood. She shook him. He shook, all soft and taffy-like. 

Come on! She had to be home for the party in three hours. She crawled onto the bed to give him a harder shake. The sheet slid off of him, revealing his body like it was trying to tell her something. His very, very naked body.

Well, there was more than one way to wake a sleeping vampire. One part of him was awake, rising into her hand like a friendly greeting. Soon it was fully hard, that nice silk-over-steel feeling, sliding against her palm. The rest of him, however... she gave a cruel twist, and Spike's mouth opened, his eyelids fluttered, but that was it. His head flopped to the side again.

If only he were always this pretty, this innocent. His hair was loose and curly, his eyeliner smudged, those plump, bitable lips and the lovely, natural lines of him. His cock was warming up against her palm. She wanted it. How like him to find a way to refuse her without refusing her. 

His thigh opened up, fell to the side. It felt like an offering. She bit her lip. Well, there was definitely more than one more than one way to wake up a sleeping vampire...

She wasn't sure suddenly if she wanted him to wake up just then. He'd say something smug and/or sarcastic and ruin the mood, if he saw her slipping out of her panties at his bedside. She was careful not to jostle him, this time, climbing back onto the bed. She slowly straddled him, lifted him into place, and sank down... ah that was what she was missing. He filled her so neatly, like a... thing that fit nice. She wasn't thinking too poetic now. She rocked slowly, enjoying the sensations. Something that didn't feel rough, or too dull. Something slick and firm and just right. It wasn't heaven, but it was closer to it than the numbing pain of daily life. 

Spike's head rolled, so he was looking down at his shoulder, if his eyes were open. That wasn't right. She took hold of his arms and set them on either side of his face, then, to keep it still. That was good. He rocked back and forth with her motions, like he was with her, but not interrupting, not saying stupid things, just there. 

The pleasure was building, the warmth, the feeling of being outside of herself, of being free... of heaven, so close, so close, she can almost touch it, she was almost there again, where she needs to be, where she has to be... 

And she's there, for a moment, all peace and light and beauty, suffused, timeless, whole, pure... she wants to laugh and cry and explode all at once and then she does...

Her sweat cooled against her skin. She felt the ripped path of a scream in her throat, and she felt oh so very tired, but a little closer to being able to cope.

She felt something move, under her hands. Spike's arms flexed against her grip, and there between them, his eyes were open, watching her, knowing her.

Knowing she didn't belong in heaven anymore. 

He frowned. "H-how long where you … were we...?"

Buffy scrambled off of him. Her panties were by the bed where she left them. Don't look back, she thought, afraid of what she'd see, but she glanced as she pulled the panties up. The bruises. On his face, on his wrists, now. The guilt. No, she shouldn't feel guilty about HIM. Wasn't there something in life she didn't have to feel guilty about?

He reached out to her, saying something low and soothing, something that made it clear he thought she was crazy, like Drusilla, that he had to hold her and make it better, because he was a damn co-dependent evil vampire. 

"I have to go," Buffy said, trying for breezy. She smiled, even. "It's my birthday."

***

Spike watched her flee up the ladder, feeling more lost than usual. He could smell that they'd had sex, but he didn't remember it. Had he hit his head again? He felt the tender spot at the back. No. No... she'd just... 

He rubbed his face, felt the tenderness there. Guess I wasn't too ugly with the bruises, he thought, bitterly, then shoved that thought down too. 

Where was that thought coming from? He'd all but asked her to do this. Before the soul he wouldn't have minded. Hell, Dru had taken his mind from him a time or two, and once he woke up in a brothel wearing nothing but a garter belt. Yeah, he'd been mad a day or two, but the thing about not having a soul was, he hadn't felt … violated.

Spike caught himself staring at the red imprint of fingers on the inside of his right wrist. Wouldn’t have bruised, if he hadn’t pushed against her. He knew that. There had been a moment of horror, when he woke up, feeling himself held down. Had she seen it? Had that sent her away? 

Could he do any bloody thing right?

He should have told her, that time in the basement, when he hit his head. He kept not telling her things, so of course…

He shook his head. He was brooding. Spike did not brood. He got up and made the bed and turned those thoughts off. Already too late getting up. It was Buffy's birthday, and he still hadn't gotten her a present.


	15. The Perfect Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike does not, ever, brood ... but he might introspect a bit. Time to time. So he does, and he decides the solution to his emotional state is to get Buffy the perfect gift.

Spike had it all figured out by the time he’d cleaned up.

It was the dream at fault. He’d had that same one again, where he can’t touch anything, as if the insubstantial state of his ghostie days had in fact never been cured but only temporarily repressed. He swiped desperately at his lighter on the dresser, passing through it again and again but hopeful that the next try would work … and yeah, that state of mind, obviously, put him in mind of Wolfram & Hart. Buffy had just happened to grab his arms where they’d been cut off, so that split second of coming out of the dream had led him into panic. 

If he hadn’t have panicked, she wouldn’t have run off. If he hadn’t had the dream, he wouldn’t have panicked, and if she hadn’t run off, really, that was the reason he felt so out of sorts. And, really, if he hadn’t been so sodding devoted to encouraging Buffy, to keeping her interest, he wouldn’t have ignored every single sodding opportunity to set boundaries, wouldn’t he? He’d all but begged her to treat him like a sex-doll and it wasn’t like you dated a mad woman for a hundred years without learning the signs of codependency. 

He was aware, from too sodding many Very Special Episodes of daytime television that you weren’t supposed to blame yourself for … things. BUT, this wasn’t that. If it was something he had done, and most everything horrible in his past was something he had done, then all he had to do was not do that. It was comforting. Only problem was the ship had bloody well sailed, hadn’t it? Anything he did at this point would feel unfair. Changing the rules.

The idea had hit him as he was picking out the best of his shirts for the party. The solution to a problem, and also a birthday present: he'd tell Buffy he had his soul. It was past time to come clean, and he was always one for the big gesture, so he dropped the two button-downs he was comparing on top of each other and sat down to write a simple note.

Dear Buffy, Happy Birthday. I have a soul. Thought you should know. Spike.

Wow. That was deserving of inclusion in a textbook on how to be tactless. He tore it up.

Happy Birthday, Buffy! Here’s a surprise. Don’t freak out about it. Something nice, though, a good surprise. I should have mentioned this before now, but with everything going on, there wasn’t a good—

For the love of Wordsworth, what a load of drivel.

Dear Buffy, got a surprise for you. Have Willow cast a soul detection --- oh for fuck’s sake that was not the way to do it.

Spike sat on his bed and tore up fourteen simple notes in a row before settling on the most direct possible. “I have a soul.” There. Let it stand on its own.

Shite. It was getting dark and he hadn’t done his hair yet. How to give her the note? You didn’t just hand that sort of thing over like a calling card.

He spotted a sword sticking out of the weapons pile and realized that particular long sword was just the sort Buffy would like, elegant without being girly. He quickly wrapped it in paper and taped the note to it. Then the sword ripped the wrapping paper, so he'd had to add another layer of wrapping. Then it ripped that wrapping.

Full dark had arrived and he had a rather puffy sword-shape of paper with a replacement copy of the note on it because he’d torn it one of the times he took it off to put it back on again. He picked the shirt that had landed on top, quickly slicked his hair, and headed out, grateful for the urgency of being late.

Buffy's house was the same as always, except there was music coming from inside, and happy voices, and he could see decorations, bright and colorful, behind the curtains. 

He stared at the back door and adjusted his grip on the sword-package, and almost dropped his six-pack of beer. (Never go to a party without beer. He was thoughtful this time and picked something bland Americans might like. A pilsner.) 

He wished he hadn't decided against swinging by Clem’s. He could use the backup. If he was honest, that was why he'd brought Clem the first time. This time he thought it wouldn't be fair to Clem, in case they got trapped in the house again, but then was it not fair to Clem to not have him make friends with Buffy's gang? Ugh, time travel was supposed to make decisions easier, not harder!

He was still standing there, chewing his lips and sweating like a nancy boy at the Prom when someone saved him from himself and opened the kitchen door. 

It was Tara, waving... purple fog? 

"Ducking out for a smoke?" Spike raised an eyebrow.

Tara coughed, shook her head, and then said, "Oh. Because of the... no. This was a decoration attempt."

Daft, but reassuringly so. "Going for that psychedelic dragon motif?"

"It was supposed to be glittery butterflies. B-but all I got was the glitter, or at least, glittery smoke. Come in, I think it's mostly past."

Into the breach, Spike thought, and stepped forward. 

Immediately, he could tell there had been magic cast. Not just from the dissipating purple smoke. Fat crepe streamers, woven into bands, trimmed the walls and ceiling with no apparent fasteners or tape, and there was a disco ball Spike distinctly didn't remember Buffy owning, floating near the ceiling but not attached to it in any way. He sucked his teeth.

There was Willow, bold as brass, standing there under the obviously magical lights with a plastic cup in her hand. Spike found himself marching up to her before he knew he was doing it. "Is this how you wield powers beyond mortal ken? To float a mirror ball?"

Willow stopped talking to Dawn and frowned at him. "You have a problem with my decorations?"

"A bit much, innit? Magic has costs, you know."

Tara of all people was tugging him back. "I- I think the decorations are nice. The purple butterflies backfired, b-but that was my fault."

"It isn't polite to criticize a party host," Dawn said. "We spent forever getting this just right! I picked the spot."

Were they all mental? Spike closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Okay, it wasn’t … really magic itself that was the problem, certainly not benign little tricks like these, and confrontation wasn't going to solve anything. Yet. "Fine. Just... show me where the gifts go." He held up his sword.

And Dawn tried, and failed, to hold in a snicker, and then everyone was laughing. Tara was wiping tears from her eyes? Had he gone mad in the last few seconds? He looked from them to the object in his hands... oh. Oh, bollocks.

The fat wrapping had made the sword into a rather cartoonish dildo-shape and there wasn't anything he could do about that. "It's a sword," he said, defensively, and that made the laughs fresh.

"I'll hide this," Dawn said, taking it from him. 

Willow was barely keeping her snickers in. "Yes. Good. Wouldn't want to... hee... ruin the surprise."

Yeah, well, he wasn't the one who bought a battery-powered "massager."


	16. Relationship Counseling With Tara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More time at the party. Spike and Tara talk.

Spike went back to the kitchen to set his beer down. 

"Are you all right?"

He turned to see Tara looking at him. "Mostly. Are you here as HER date?"

He didn't mean for it to come out so angry. She flinched. He felt so keenly how alive and fragile she was. 

Then her face changed and he remembered how strong she could be, too. "You don't approve of MY dating choices?"

"It's not about who approves and who doesn't. It's about... love has to include respect. You can't be with someone who treats you like you don't matter."

Oh hell, her strong face was getting even stronger. "How DID you get that bruise around your eye?"

Was that a guess, or did she know something? Oh, bollocks, he could see that it was a guess and the longer he took to respond, the more she knew something. "This isn't about B... me. This is about Willow abusing magic. After you told her to stop."

Tara frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah. Because she erased your memory. Sodding AGAIN."

Tara took a step back. Her hand went to her throat. "I don't... Willow wouldn't do that." She didn't look sure. 

Well, good. "The thing of it is, she's gotten so she thinks magic is always the answer, like she's got it tamed. It's not a lap-dog. It's a dragon. She thinks she can take decisions away from other people, run things her way, but it's not her way, it's magic's way, and woe unto all of you when the dragon gets peckish and--" and she was standing right there in the kitchen door, looking right at Spike. Bollocks. 

"What are you guys talking about?" Willow asked, flatly. 

Tara shook her head. "Nothing. I'm going to go get more punch."

He needed to get Tara alone again, explain it better. He started to follow her, but Willow stepped in his path. Her eyes were rimmed in black. Fuck. “What is with you, lately? It’s like I can’t do anything right enough for Saint Spike. I’m sorry I made decorations for my friend’s party! Should I not have bought chips, either?”

Since Spike never could back down when he needed to, he opened his fool gob. " She's a wonderful woman, and you're treating her like rubbish."

"You don’t know the first thing about Tara, or me.”

Worst bollocks of all the bollocks. If she took away his memory... that level of helplessness terrified him. What if The First got him again? What if he did something terrible, again? Spike held up his hands and knew he was about to come off as very un-Spike-like. "I want you to be happy. I want everyone to be happy, and safe. I know you don't believe that from me."

"I really don't."

"Just think, will you? Think about how your actions affect others. Think how awful you'd feel if Tara got hurt."

"Now you're threatening my girlfriend?"

"Christ, no! Ugh. This is worse than when you all couldn't tell Glory was Ben. Am I not speaking in English, here?"

From the living room, Xander called, “Hey, Will! Gang’s all here!”

Willow narrowed her eyes at Spike, but the black edged out of them, and then she was just a twenty-something playing Adult Party Host, picking up the chips and rushing off to greet her guests. “Did you bring the candles?”

Spike popped open a fresh beer and caught his breath. Salvation. He even toasted Anya and Whatshisname from the doorway.

It was good to have a moment on the sidelines, observing. He’d have to cool it with Willow. The direct approach was not going to do anything but turn him into a frog. But at least she’d cooled off fast. Maybe Spike Being Weird wasn’t worth all that. He could hope. He could enjoy the scene for what it was, these children on the cusp of adulthood, feeling out their lives together, doing something ordinary and mundane (albeit with extraordinary décor.) He was lying to himself about not remembering Richard's name. What a normal, ordinary git. 

Then to the east, the sun broke through the clouds: or more mundanely put, Buffy came down the stairs. Spike straightened. Her eyes flicked his way and quickly left again. Hope and despair like a flash bulb going off. Buffy waded into her friends like into cold water. He saw the eager hope on Anya's face as she pushed Richard forward. Saw how utterly not a threat the boy was. Buffy was being friendly and polite, nothing more. It still hurt, seeing her among others, excluding him, but he knew it was a temporary pain, like a hangover.

Spike wished someone would notice how mature he was being right now. 

So he sidled up to Anya at the edge of the group. "Did you bring him for me? Nice of you, but I'm off the live stuff."

Anya didn't get it. "We brought him for Buffy. If she has a boyfriend we can do couple things together!" 

"You know that's bollocks. Most people can't stand their mate's, well, mates." 

Anya scowled at him. "We're going to do it right, and we're all extremely likeable people. Why? Is there a reason this fails? You know something." She exaggeratedly mouthed “Future?”

He backed up. “I just don’t think he’s her type.”

Anya advanced, looking intently, her whispers raising. “Does he become a vampire? A republican?”

Xander rescued him, of all people, taking her arm and kissing her cheek. “Not every comment from future-boy is a dire warning.”

Willow glanced toward them. Had she heard “future-boy?”

Anya pouted. “I think it’s very unfair. He should write us a guide. Cliff notes!”

Did he have to come clean about everything, right now? No, no … the others were busy eating chips in awkward silence. “I’ll get on that,” he said, and that seemed to satisfy her.

Then Xander noticed the awkward silence and they were back to trying to integrate Richard into conversation.

What a lovely idea, bring a civilian to the party so no one can talk about half the stuff they do. Spike wished he could get drunk or just leave. Buffy was barely glancing at him, but she was glancing at him, and so he felt tethered in place, unwilling to let a single petal of attention fall unreceived.

He felt as nervous as if he were proposing marriage. Maybe that was the problem, all along. He was looking for big moments. His stupid bloody list. Every day was what mattered, chips and crisps and discussing the latest tv shows. He tried to pay attention to the conversation, but he got the weirdest looks from Anya, and Dawn kept brushing his side like a badly-trained pickpocket. It left him jumpy.

The skittish girl from work arrived, cake was cut... so far no sign of supernatural hijinks. If it weren't for the very real terror that Willow was going to destroy him, he’d have nothing to distract him from endlessly studying Buffy and wondering how she would react to his big reveal. He had this sick certainty she’d discover some heretofore unknown way to react that would be more painful than any he could imagine.

He needed to prepare her, so it wasn’t a shock. Also, there was a fast approaching chance the time-travel secret was going to slip out before present time. So … a quick “Don’t panic but a bombshell is coming” was more than called for.

There seemed to always be someone between them, but he finally got himself alone with Buffy in front hallway – she was probably trying to escape the party. He couldn’t blame her. "Hey," he said.

She looked at him and looked away. “Go back to the party. I’m just … getting something.”

Liar. He slouched against the wall and touched his stomach. She always liked when he touched his stomach. Her eyes followed like magnets. “It can wait.”

Buffy half-shrugged in confirmation.

Crap. Now what? Buffy shifted back, looked toward the kitchen. He was losing her. When in doubt, flirt. He was good at flirting. "I was thinking about that talk we had on your back porch." He hooked a belt-loop and tugged down. "Think more about what you might want... for your birthday?"

There. He had her. She was blushing fetchingly. Her hand was over his, her thumb gently brushing his exposed skin. "Stop it. There's a million people."

"Well, we'll just have to be very quiet." He lowered his voice to purr. Her pulse fluttered and she leaned against him. Nothing between him and her heat but a layer of denim and cloth. He dipped his head toward her open mouth. “Listen, love, later on—"

And someone cleared their throat. Tara. De ja fucking vu.

Buffy ran for it. Again. Tara smiled at him, waiting to receive his lame excuse. Well, he was done feeding her good joke material. "You already know, don't you?"

"Know what?"

He rolled his eyes. "Me an' her. Buffy. You know we’re having … troubles. You said as much when you asked where I got my shiner."

And Tara looked taken aback. "Buffy hit you?"

So maybe she hadn't been guessing so clearly. Bollocks. "Forget that. It doesn't matter. It's different. She's a vampire slayer, I'm a vampire. She can't help herself. It's... it's reflex."

Tara approached him. "I thought you were talking about me and Willow. You mean... Buffy..." she looked back over her shoulder.

"I was talking about you and Willow! Me and Buffy are fine. Your girlfriend is fucking with your mind."

She gave him a top-notch glare. "According to you."

"According to anyone not under a memory spell, which after today I'm afraid isn't going to include me anymore."

Tara frowned. She put her hand on his chest. "You're right about one thing. Love should come with respect." And then she walked away, still frowning.

"Hey everyone, it's present time!" Xander called from the living room. 

Heh "massager" time. Wait... that meant... time for his big reveal. The note. On the sword. In front of everyone, even Richard and that weird girl from Buffy's work. Hi, I have my soul now. Surprise. I had it for a while but not going to say exactly when because it's not tied to any particular event or anything, this was my choice and I wanted you to know. Oh bollocks.

The humans were gathering in the living room. Xander himself held Spike's gift aloft. "And this... questionably-shaped gift..."

Spike snatched it from him, tore off all the wrapping, and his note, and held the bare sword out. "It's a sword. For you. Because you use swords."

He could tell by the frozen and awkward faces around him that he had absolutely nailed that. 

"Thanks," Buffy said, dubiously, and took the sword. 

"The wrapping was bloody obvious," Spike offered, and picked up the crumpled paper. He stomped into the kitchen and shoved it all as deep as he could into the trash bin, feeling like an absolute coward.


	17. Why we walk away and why we stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tara makes a discovery and a decision. 
> 
> Spike continues to be chicken-vamp.

Spike stood by the trash until he realized he was hoping someone would see how weird he was acting. Coward. Absolute pissing-scared baby. What could he do now? It seemed a fact of nature that he couldn’t try again. Not in the same way. Confession by note was permanently wrecked.

He drank another beer, sitting on the counter, listening to the other gifts being opened. He smiled when, after Xander revealed the big weapons chest gift, Dawn said, "Oh! You can put your new sword in it!" 

That was enough. He'd tried as best he could for tonight. Next … whenever. There’d be a next time. He finished off his beer and headed out the back door. 

He held his breath as he stepped over the threshold, but nothing stopped him, it was as easy as stepping over anything. He turned back, not that he expected to see anyone, and pulled the door closed.

Alone, in the night. Well, wasn't this familiar? He stuck his hands in his pockets and headed toward the street, thinking about the bourbon he'd left at home.

The front door opened, a flash of buttery light, and footsteps running. He turned. Buffy tugged his sleeve, lifting up on her tip-toes. She kissed his cheek. "Thanks," she said.

“For what?”

“For being here. For … making things easy.” She bit her lip. “I won’t make you stay.” She stepped back, raising one hand like she wanted to hold on to him, or draw him after her, but after three steps she let the gesture turn into a small wave, and she turned, and went into the house.

He stood there a long time, holding his cheek. 

***

Tara felt like there were two versions of reality superimposing each other every time she looked at Willow. Her sweet, loving, perfect Willow, in one version. In the other, Willow's smile lingered after it was meant, and Willow’s gaze would turn analytical every time she didn’t know she was being watched, as though she were looking for symptoms, evidence.

Tara didn't like feeling like this. Like she was being carefully monitored. Like when she lived with her family. She thought that she'd never feel that vulnerable again. Willow had been part of what protected and strengthened her.

Spike couldn't be telling the truth. But there were... signs. Little gaps in her memory. Thoughts that didn't feel like her own. 

Tara slipped away right after the candles were blown out. A quick history-viewing spell wouldn't take long. She had one she'd perfected for catching lectures she'd missed due to slayage-related chaos. 

There was a day that particularly bothered her, that had a blank spot that included all of a lecture in her economics class and that had cost her a good grade on the next exam. The syllabus reminded her of the date. She purified a space with sage and set her largest crystal on a tripod of river stones with natural holes in them. She let her consciousness seep into the ordered world of rock and nature and water.

A line of light grew, up the crystal from its base, until it was a foot tall and thickening. It opened, like a sideways eye, and there she saw herself, red in the face, tears standing in her eyes. "This too much. This was my mind, Willow."

Willow, also crying. "I swear, never again. I just wanted you to be happy. You wanted to forget, too!"

"I can't know that." And Tara of the past grabs a bag off the bed and storms out. 

And... Willow wipes her tears and goes to the dresser, taking out a book and some herbs.

The door opened behind Tara. Without a rush of fear, she banished the time-window. 

"Hey, snuggle-bear. You left the party so fast?"

Willow. Her Willow. Who held her and loved her and... 

Tara felt a deep fissure in herself, a shudder like an earthquake, and she had to keep it all inside. 

She'd had some practice at that, back home. She wasn't sure she could be the same person.

"Hey," Willow squatted down opposite from her. "What's wrong?"

Lie. Lie, Tara. You remember how to lie? Lie like you would to your father, to your brother. To the high school counsellor. "N-nothing." She forced a smile and started gathering up the spell components. "I thought I'd do a time-spell, look into Buffy's next birthday. S-sort of a gift."

Willow's eyes widened with worry. With compassion. "Is it Buffy? Is it Dawn? Who gets hurt? You can tell me. I can fix it. We can fix it together."

She almost felt guilty, how easy the alternate explanation fell into place. "I-it might not happen. I... you know how these things are. It could be r-revealing the knowledge of it that causes the problem. I just... need to do some research. On a specific... thing."

Tara fled. There was no other word for it. Any second longer, and Willow would see through her. She needed a protection spell, fast, before... before she forgot again. 

Oh, Willow.

In the living room, Anya and Xander were getting their coats. Buffy, for some reason, came in from the front door. 

Tara ducked her head, hoping it would keep them from looking at her, and moved fast but not too fast to the back door. 

Breathe. She could bring up a small protection charm right then, with the moonlight and concentration. She always carried a pendant that could be used for the ritual. 

The moon was over the garage. She said her prayer and felt a very tiny bit better. It was as much protection as a layer of gauze against a bullet, but it was something.

She ran to the road, and there was Spike, standing in front of the house, holding his cheek with a beatific smile. 

And Tara suddenly felt a hot ball of rage. He was the one who destroyed her piece of mind. Who ripped the wool from her eyes. She should be grateful, but she couldn't be … not yet. 

And he was standing there looking so happy in his own delusion, with those bruises on his face.

She marched up to him, all anger, and... said nothing. He flinched anyway. Then the bravado settled over him like a familiar cloak. "My words sank in, did they? Need a place to stay?"

The presumption! She had so many things she wanted to say. How he was giving advice he should be taking, how wrong it was to keep trusting when you knew you shouldn’t, like protecting yourself was somehow a betrayal. Was that it? Was he letting Buffy hit him because he wanted her to be the one to choose to stop? "Don't you dare pity me," was what came out of her mouth, shaking with rage.

Embarrassed, she turned and ran for it. Magic Box. She had everything she needed at the magic box. 

Spike, annoyingly, followed. 

After a block she couldn't take it anymore and said, "L-leave me alone."

"Just giving you a look out. Lots of nasties afoot."

"I c-can take care of myself." She turned to face him, and the shakiness subsided. She felt calm again. "Can you?"

He gaped. She hurried on, not bothering to check if he stopped following. If he didn't, he was at least quiet about it.


	18. In the Company of Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike, reeling from Tara's apt words, has a run-in with toxic masculinity at the local pub. 
> 
> It doesn't go well for him.

Spike watched Tara spear him with her gaze, intention as clear as if she had been able to pull the bruise from his cheek and show it to him. Take care of himself? Like he... first off, it wasn't a fair fight, on account that he never joined in the punching. And that was NOT evidence of something broken in him. It was his choice to take a beating, because he knew he could, because, and here was the clincher argument, he could take care of himself! Ha, take that, Glinda!

Except he was arguing in his head to her rapidly-retreating figure, and then she was in the Magic Box and he was still standing in the street like an absolute berk, gesturing to no one.

He needed a drink. Immediately. Fortunately, there was a pub just across the way. Human place, but seeing as how this was a Monday, it should be pretty dead. 

Spike pushed his way into the dark interior. Normally he shunned fake "English" pubs. Real wood beams a clear gap below the acoustical tile ceiling, sodding waste of timber. A real pub would be calculating how to get rid of the sodding beam because it was too low and some pillock beaned himself on it at least once a month. The smell of desperate, lonely males mixed with spilled beer was authentic, at least. 

Two gents were siting two barstools apart, and the bartender was leaning on the taps, watching him. Spike felt the crumpled bills in his pocket and did some quick price calculation. "Bottom shelf scotch," he said, "double shot, neat." 

The bartender nodded and set to his work. 

Spike settled at the far end of the bar from the two blokes. This was what he needed. The company of men. No bollocks about emotions or relationships. Just the highlights from ESPN and stilted conversation about the weather. Their interior troubles kept interior, privacy respected. Like men.

Then the bloke closer to him said, "Jesus Christ, is that nail polish?"

The company of men, he was constantly forgetting, had its disadvantages. Spike raised two fingers in salute. "No. I hit each nail with a hammer to darken 'em up because it's manlier." His drink arrived then and he muttered "Berk" into the comforting smell of whisky.

The bartender said, "Are you, like, Australian?" with that eager fascination Americans had for the very existence of other ways of speaking.

The bloke’s pupils had widened a touch, his lips hung open a second, and Spike supposed he was a sad, closeted poof, which made him inclined to be more charitable than usual in his response. However, as he was trying to come up with a polite way to point out the vast, incalculable difference between a London accent and a Sydney one, that same wanker who had a problem with nail polish slurred, "Excuse me for asking a question, fucking fairy."

Spike held still a moment, his hand was up to begin the dialect lesson. Do not get in a bar fight, you don't know if the chip is working... Spike felt a smart remark flowing through him, an irresistible force. He swallowed half his drink to keep it down. "Not a fairy." He pointed at the bloke, then the bartender, "not Australian. Look, I've had a very trying day, trouble with my girl, as a matter of fact, which is another point in the 'not a pouf' category, so let's just have our drinks and fail to interact like civilized men, yeah?"

The further-away bloke, who was a California classic in flannels and a baseball cap with a racist sports team logo, said, "Imaginary girlfriend, eh? I’ve heard that one before. Or is it some ugly chick who thinks you’re saving it for marriage?"

Closer-asshole snorted at this wit. "Hey, yeah, or one of those girls who dresses up like a vampire, like whattaya call 'em? Goths? Some real crazy chick. Talks to aliens or something."

The sensible "Do not get in a bar fight" voice in the back of his brain was having a very hard time competing with the "they just talked ill of my woman!" voice. When he was dating Drusilla, he’d have already shown them their insides for saying less. Of course, when he was dating Drusilla, he hadn’t had this chip problem, either. Hypothetically still there. Two-on-one was not the way to test it. He felt his molars grind hard enough to chip. "I’ll ask you polite to apologize to my girl. She's a lovely woman. Bettern' I deserve. Perfect American sweetheart. Cheerleader. You'd like her, in fact. But you can’t have her, so that’s the end of all the contact you’ll ever have with the likes of her. Don’t talk shite about people you don’t know." There. Wow. That was exactly how a mature adult did it. Well done, William.

A chuckle, a little whip-gesture. Cute. Beneath his notice. "If she's so perfect, what's the trouble?"

The bartender, up until then so clearly on Spike's side, asked, "Is she not putting out?"

He dropped his glass on the bar and spread his hands wide. "It's like you berks want me to throw my fists around. No, it's not anything to do with putting out or lack thereof. We have lovely amounts of sex. Almost too much."

Berk the first, "Too much sex? Heh. You ARE a fag."

"I’m a poof? For having heterosexual sex until we're both sore and bleeding? Good one. Guess I'm gay as a bloody Easter bonnet."

The bloke stood up then, which was the proverbial straw, and before Spike's brain caught up with his fist, it was connecting with said bloke's greasy chin.

And then, horribly, the blinding pain, like an explosion expanding against his skull.

No. No. He knew it, the powers that wank would do that to him, but there’d been a hope, a tiny hope the chip wasn’t there, that he hadn’t been carrying around an assault in his head.

He swam drunkenly through the pain, and a fist in his gut. The bartender pleading with them to stop. The chip jolted him a second time, a third, because he was out of sodding habit of not thinking about hurting people when they beat him, and then they were hauling him like a bag of rubbish, fists pulling on his coat, his shirt. Someone grabbed the back of his jeans like a handle and they tossed him out, onto the pavement. 

He rested, blinking back the stars and swarming black dots. The sidewalk was filthy and he felt he might vomit, but over all, that wasn’t so bad. He gathered himself, mentally, for getting up, for going home, for forgetting those berks.

Then he felt a foot rest on his ass. Fuck. He tried to turn and see if it was asshole-one or asshole-two. “For fuck’s sake bugger off.”

“You really are a pussy. Can’t even fight as good as a woman.” And then the large hand gripped the back of his jeans again, and pulled him up, and Spike felt weary all over, to the roots of his hairs. 

He struggled to keep his legs under him, but he was thrown again, against a brick wall. He got one foot on the ground only to be picked up and thrown again, into a damper section of tarmac, smelling of spoiled food and oil, feeling the cold of day-long shadows. An alleyway. This did not bode well at fucking all. He twisted, anticipating the next grab, and got himself clear, against the soft body of a trash bag. “Yeah,” he sneered, “I don’t fight shit-heads. Gets filth all over my hands.”

He knew he was going to have to run for it, like a coward. It choked him with gall. The humiliation of running from this overgrown school bully. But he was smarter than he was proud, and he turned.

To get punched in the face by Asshole-2.

Then the real beating started.


	19. We Need to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy has an awful day, and it looks like Spike did, too. 
> 
> ... sorry for the delay in posting.

Buffy was having a terrible day. First, Todd-the-MBA lecturing her over the grill like he wasn't as much a part of the service economy as she was, then that vampire telling her she smelled bad! 

The Doublemeat Palace was taking all she had to give, and not exactly giving a living wage in return. She lifted her shirt and sniffed. Was that her or the bag of burgers she was carrying?

All she wanted to do was get home, give Dawn her questionably-healthy dinner of fast food, and take the world's longest bath.

So, of course Spike was skulking outside her house. She stopped in her steps the moment she saw neon-blonde reflecting in the streetlights. The nerve. She’d waited around for him all day, yesterday, and when she’d given in and gone to his crypt, he wasn’t there. Now she smelled like burger grease and had no energy for … things she wasn’t contemplating, and anyway she didn’t have the energy.

He straightened up from slouching against the tree in her yard. "There you are."

Crap. He saw her. And her hair was. She felt her head and couldn’t tell. It couldn’t be good, what with the cow-hat for eight hours. Buffy hugged her bag of burgers to her chest, dropped her chin, and tried to march past Spike. “No,” she said.

He sighed for, like, eighteen syllables, and just dropped into step behind her. "I haven't asked any questions yet."

"We both know why you're here and what you're thinking." Now she was at the door. She had to get her key, and that meant a dangerous percent chance of turning his way. Eep. She looked. There he was, tilting his head down to study her. Was his face more bruised today? 

"No, we don't. That's what I want to talk about."

It was! Not only was his eye worse, there was a completely new bruise darkening along his jaw. Not that she was jealous. It wasn't like she minded if other people punched her... not that he was hers … there was nothing special about punching Spike!

Even her inner monologue was a failure. Buffy felt so tired. She slumped on the front steps, the paper sack of burgers against her shins. "I can't do this."

Spike leaned against the post next to her. "Buffy, I woke up in an alleyway this morning and had to dodge the sun to get home, where I had to take a miserable cold shower, again, and had trouble falling asleep because my crypt doesn't exactly lock."

"None of that is my fault."

"Well... you did bust in the lock.” He looked proud of her when he said that. He dropped onto the step beside her. “And the one before it. I got tired of trying to fix it, and the door's warped now around where the old lock mounted and... this isn't the point. I didn't come here to talk about locks. I came to talk about us."

Of course he did. Spike was a non-stop source of "let's talk about our relationship." Buffy felt the warmth of the burger in the bag and wondered how long she had before it was too cold for even Dawn to find it palatable. "Can we not?"

Oh that look. Daring her to stop him, and his face all bruised. There was a bruise under the collar of his shirt, the silver chain he wore laying on it as if to show it off. She was staring at his neck. He swallowed. Now she was staring at his lips. Spike-serious face. Oh. Eyes, okay, she could keep her eyes on his.

His brows tightened. "We do things... to each other. And we don't talk about them. And last night, I was in this bar, and these blokes, they were so full of shite that they made me realize how I've been full of it, too. You see, it matters, Buffy. What we do to each other and how it makes us feel, it matters, and we have to talk to each other, we have to know that we're doing... just what feels good. Not crossing lines. You understand what I'm saying?"

Buffy’s words came out weak, barely breathing. "Not even a little bit." Because she did understand. This was about her, about things she’d done, and shouldn’t have done, and couldn’t they just pretend they hadn’t happened? Couldn’t he let her just not be bad in the future?

He was studying her, and silent, and maybe he was going to let her off the hook again, like always? But his lips pressed tight. “Tara gave me a right talking to. Said love doesn’t have to hurt.”

It wasn’t fair! She’d looked for him! He needed saving and she’d missed it and … Buffy stood, sweating with panic. "I need to give Dawn her dinner."

To her surprise, he said, "What if you didn’t? What happens, if just once, you let the bit get her own dinner? Weren’t you saving the world at her age?”

She should tell him she’d looked for him. Not as an excuse, but he might be thinking she didn’t care. She should tell him she knew it was wrong, that all those years of hitting him had labelled him “a thing you hit” in her hind-brain and now she couldn’t let go of that and it was so bad she was actually jealous of some monster for bruising up her vampire and he had damn well better have fought back because she was the only one who should … who he should …

Buffy was backed up against the door, holding the burger sack like a shield in front of her.

Spike looked at her like he knew every last thing she was thinking, and the thoughts tired him out as much as they did her. “If being with me is what does it, if I make you a worse person … I don’t want that.”

Buffy felt her heart fall with a wet plop on the floor by her feet. No, that was the Doublemeat bag. Her lungs wouldn’t draw air. She had to try twice to make the words come out. “A-are you b-breaking--?”

His face collapsed then, too. Vampire-quick he was holding her hands, kneeling right on top of that bag of burgers. “Love. It’s not all-or-nothing. I think we can be better. We can do better, with and for each other. We just have to hold each other to account, that’s all. We have to talk, and be honest. We have to say the things,” he smiled sadly, “The things we’re scared to say.”

Which sounded kind of mature and maybe deep and was SPIKE more of a successful adult than she was? That was horrifying. She needed to stop this conversation at all costs. She ran for it, jumping the railing on the porch. She didn’t stop until she was breaking open the back door.

Dawn looked up at her from a bowl of cereal. “Is something wrong with the front door?”

Buffy tried to get the door to latch again. The wood was broken all over the thingy the lock went into. With a sigh she dragged a stool over to hold the door closed. “Vampire,” she said.

Dawn blinked, “Oh. Must’ve been a toughie.”

“The toughest.” Buffy went up to take that bath, but she couldn’t enjoy it, knowing she’d be alone with her own thoughts, and her thoughts were on Spike’s side.


	20. As You Were, All Over Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had to address the big Riley-comes-for-demon eggs thing! This chapter is a bit longer than most. I indulge all my favorite fan theories and Spike and Buffy have an actual sort of heart-to-heart.

It said something that Spike did not remember the exact sequence of events that followed Buffy suddenly showing up and demanding, rather than refusing, that he say he loved her. It was just muddled with all the other instances of being grabbed and demanded of. He was still sore, and full of these useless resolutions to make her talk about things and maybe, oh, not have a complete train wreck of a relationship, so he found himself trying to stop her as her hands tore at his clothes. He tried to break the kiss off, start to say something.

It was when she threw him on the sarcophagus lid that sense memory caught up. This was THAT tryst. The last tryst. The very day of “I’m sorry, William.” His heart clenched.

Was he really out of time?

No, he couldn’t give up that easily. The first step was to make sure this was the best sex of her life. A step behind and off-kilter, but he rallied every memory, every replay, he met her before she knew where she was going. 

They were always good at this part, but he strove to be better. He tore his clothes with no care for what he’d wear tomorrow. When she impaled herself on him, he picked her up, fucked her against gravity and then jumped, down to the second floor. His feet hit with pain that lanced all the way up to his hips, but it was worth it. He felt her gasp, her shock. Yeah, he rarely took charge so completely. This time, she let him. He laid her out on the neatly-made bed and took his time ravaging her. She clung and screamed and clawed at his hair and dug her toes into his ass while he buried his face in her sweetly sweaty neck and it was even more desperate and hard and passionate than the first time.

So much so that this time, oh this time, when he could have had a reckoning of deadline, he was still in her, balls-deep when the door upstairs banged open.

Buffy clenched around him like a trap snapping shut. The muscles on a startled slayer could take a man’s dick right off. As soon as he could make a sound other than a squeal, he nuzzled under her ear. “I’ll go see who it is. You get your knickers on.”

It took a few more nuzzles to get her to let go, and he hated to separate from her, knowing this comfort, this firm grasp as if in love, could be the last he felt.

Maybe. He still had a few cards to play.

He heard the steps moving around, getting closer to the ladder. He hurried up, practically head-butting Riley in the crotch as the soldier was starting to climb down.

I got a few extra minutes, Spike thought to himself, and with that cold comfort he gripped the ladder and leaned back to block as much of the view as possible. “Oy. Knocking. Heard of it?”

“I’m not in the habit of knocking before entering a hidden cache of biological weapons, DOCTOR.”

Spike grit his teeth at having to do this conversation again, but he did have some compensation. He hopped up onto the lip of the ladder opening, legs spread, dangling, all on display. He loved how Riley did the stiff polite look-somewhere-else thing. Delicious, in a beginning-of-a-Penthouse-forum-I-never-knew-I-was-bisexual-until-that-day-letter way. “Oh, you’re after that Doc bloke? About time someone big, professional, and joyless rounded up the scamp. You need an address?” He pulled his most sarcastic innocent face.

“Where are the eggs, Spike?”

Just the question he was hoping for. He licked his lips, savoring the moment. “Oh, I get it now. Yeah, Doc asked me to hold some Suvolte eggs for him – for a week he said, and promised a fat check for babysitting. But I’m not an idiot.” Anymore, he silently added to himself. “I took the down payment, let the critter lay her eggs, and after she and Doc left, I sliced each one in half with a pure silver dagger and burnt the remains.” He tilted his head to the east. “Check the trash bin in the cemetery parking lot if you want to see if there’s anything left.”

Riley shook his head like he’d been stung by a gnat. He was really having a hard time looking down to see Spike without looking DOWN and seeing all of Spike. Spike kicked his legs in delight. Riley tried again, “That’s not—”

“Exactly how to kill Suvolte eggs, according to the Demonicus Compendium? Because I fucking checked, teacher’s assistant.”

Riley covered his eyes. “I want to search your crypt.”

“Over my dead body.”

Riley uncovered his eyes and got his extra ration of hero heteronormative working, because he met Spike’s gaze firmly for the first time. “Yes, actually, if your dead body is in the way.”

That was Spike’s cue to get moving. Spike tried to get to his feet over a gaping hole and block the path of a much larger person with leverage... and the chip on his side, sod it. Spike had to actively try not to hurt the bloke as he pushed back...

And it was trying to be careful that had him forget his grip on the floor and, bam, he fell through, hitting hard dirt with his naked arse. He rolled to get to his feet fast and looked to the bed. Buffy wasn’t in sight. Well, good. Maybe she’d buggered out the back exit. Maybe that meant she'd have to wait to dump him. Another day? 

Riley followed him down with a more macho jump, landing on his feet with a precise knee-bend. He turned in circles, confused at the emptiness.

Too confused. “You were mighty sure,” Spike snarled. “Had a part in it? Sad to see you couldn’t set up old Spike?”

Was that a glint of guilt in the oversized boy scout’s grimace? Riley took one more turn around the room – no space large enough for a full clutch of Sulvolte eggs was concealed. “You’d better be telling the truth,” Riley said, and slung himself back up the ladder. “Control? Yeah, I need a decon and CSI team at the north end of Restfield Cemetery. No, the parking lot. I’ll explain.”

“And don’t let the door hit you!” Spike shouted.

Spike stood, head craned back, but no further invasion followed. No flame throwers, and his bedroom downright intact for a change. It felt… nice… but not as nice as he’d hoped. 

He sighed and picked up a pair of jeans off the floor. Not the ones he’d been wearing – those were upstairs. Was it better for her to have gone off without breaking his heart? Maybe. Maybe it was just a prolonging of the agony.

What would he say, when he saw her again? Oh, bollocks. He’d never let go of this feeling that he was on borrowed time. All his plans, his resolutions, his arguments … he might as well chuck them in the bin with the burned eggs. He didn’t have the strength for this. Rejection. It was his kryptonite.

There was a soft sound and he turned. Buffy rose from behind the bed, the sheets clasped around her, looking embarrassed.

Oh. Spike cleared his throat and rubbed his tailbone where it still smarted from impact. “So…”

“Thanks,” she said.

Thanks? He couldn’t speak.

She tucked the sheet more firmly around her. “I… think my clothes are upstairs.”

“I’ll, uh, fetch them.” He cleared his throat. “No need climbing in your toga.”

What was going on? Was she not going to dump him, then? Had it all really been about the eggs, not her realizing she was using him? It... it wasn't enough, was it? Hurting him wasn’t enough to fire her conscience.

Spike felt an unmanly prickle about the eyes and banished the wool-gathering. He quickly found Buffy’s knickers, her blouse, and her bra, and jumped down with this much to offer.

He turned his back as she dressed, which was stupid. He was feeling all over vulnerable. “You, uh…” He should say something. Bloody hell, what if this was his chance to fix it all proper? “You know I’d do anything for you,” he said. Trite rubbish.

“Including ripping off some demon weapons dealer?” There was a hint of amused reproach in her voice. That was good.

“Well, yeah. I mean… you know I’m a bad man.” Used to be. Sod it, tell her. “I’m trying to be good. For you.”

She walked into his line of sight. “I know what you are,” she said. “And this… and you and…”

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t say you’re using me. That’s bollocks.”

A moment of surprise. Damn. She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

Oh. “You, uh… that probably sounded loud and defensive. Uh, look, pet…”

“But that’s part of it.” She bit her lip. Oh she was adorable when she did that. “You have to admit, this… us… it’s not healthy.”

He clenched his fists, even though this was exactly what he’d been trying to say, himself. “Why? Because you enjoy what we do together? Because it’s not about love? Well, who the hell set that as a rule? People’ve been screwing each other blind since the dawn of time for no reason other than it felt good.” 

“We hurt each other. That’s what you were talking about, at my house. I didn’t want to hear it. I was scared and … and my life was feeling so pathetic. While I’ve been trying to look less than terrible in front of my ex, you’ve been saving us from demons I didn’t even know about. And saving me from being humiliated. Again. And I keep seeing bruises,” her fingers reached, tracing the air, his shoulder. He looked down. There was a rather dark contusion on his collarbone. “I don’t even know if I made them, because there’s always new ones. Even if I didn’t, I know I hurt you.”

Oh his heart was breaking. Again. Worse. He lowered his voice, and his head, and crept carefully, reverently toward her. “I said we should talk about it. We can talk, love. We can listen to each other and… and there won’t be any hurting.” He didn’t believe himself as he said it. Love always hurt. 

Buffy tapped her chest. “I don’t like who I’ve become when I’m around you.”

No. NO. He did not bring this on himself. “Whose fault is that? That you feel that way? You saved the bloody world, and all you got for it was pulled out of your just reward to flip burgers and think of everyone else but yourself first. Someone put that voice in your head, that bully telling you all these rules, putting yourself last.” He was in a fine lather, pacing and gesturing. “It’s bollocks. I won’t have it. You ‘ve got to let someone think of you first, even if you won’t.”

He glanced back at her, half afraid of what he’d see. He didn’t expect to see her looking so gobsmacked. Like he’d hit her in the face with a fish. “Bloody hell. You haven’t really thought about any of this, have you?" He came back to her, spoke gently. "You’re just going on some patriarchal bullshit about how good little girls ought to behave and how they ought to love. News flash – love doesn’t have ‘oughts’. Quite the opposite. Love always goes where it oughtn’t and makes you do what you mustn’t.”

She looked like she was going to fall, or flee, so he took hold of her, and she let him. Her eyes were glittering, just a little, and his chest swelled that it might be for him. She wiped her tears with the heel of her hand. “You practiced that speech longer than I practiced mine.”

“Fuck the speeches, love. Go on, find the rest of your things, go home, and have a nice soak. And if some caveman in the back of your brain tells you to feel guilty about any of this, tell him to sod off back to the stone age.”

She frowned, and looked like she might speak, and Spike felt his life hanging by the barest thread, but then she relaxed, shook her head, and said, “Right. Yeah. I… I should head home.” A grimace. “Riley might look for me.”

“If he asks, please tell him I shagged you blind,” Spike muttered, and she rewarded him with a gentle shove.

He held the door for her as she left.

Then he was alone, and sore, and somewhat shagged out, and his crypt was still his crypt and that felt nice… but not as nice as he thought it would.


	21. Wedding Bells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Xander and Anya's Wedding Day! Will things go better this time?

Buffy arrived early to the hall, before Anya, even, so that she and Willow and Tara could meet the florist and the facilities manager. It was good… the most mundane things, finding keys and assuring the hall staff there would be no use of tape on the walls. Buffy, slayer of to do lists. This was what it felt like to have a normal life, and normal friends, doing normal things. 

She was surprised when Spike showed up, smoking blanket overhead, just as she was setting out the little bottles of bubbles on the table by the sign-in book. “Guests don’t come until six. Are you helping? Is this a Spike helping thing?”

He flapped his coat, which was always cute, like a vampire bird… or bat. Why did she start with bird? On top of the adorable, though, he looked scared. “We got a problem. Need to talk, private.”

And then he grabbed her elbow and dragged her into the coat check. Buffy felt a fluttering expectation that was pure Pavlovian crotch. (Spike plus private place equals groiny fun times!)

But fortunately for her dress, makeup, and general self-worth, he let go and stepped away as soon as they were alone in the long, empty room with racks of hangers on the ceiling. Spike huffed, balling up his blanket and tossing it in a corner. “I’ll just come out and say it – I told Anya and Xander I’m… seeing someone.”

Excited horny Buffy was hit with a splash of cold, hormone-removing fear. “You what?”

“Anya wouldn’t let it go! I didn’t name you! But given the way Anya is with the insight, I’m surprised she hasn’t twigged already. Probably too caught up in the nuptials. Anyway, that’s not the worst part.” He fidgeted, peeking out the door and rubbing the back of his head. 

“Enough suspense. What could possibly be worse? I have centerpieces to set. You have two minutes.”

He glanced at the door once more, just like him to squeeze in an extra fidget. "They're expecting to meet this 'special someone' today. Yes, I tried to say she moved to Bavaria and couldn’t make it. You know I’m crap at lying. Anya made sure of the seating arrangements and all that bollocks. Two place settings, table five, next to Clem and some other demons."

Buffy relaxed. "So? Let them think you got stood up. What's the harm with that?"

After a pregnant pause, he said, "What if I don't want to be stood up?" 

"Too bad. You're the one who made up an imaginary date."

He looked pained. "You could come out... out of the cloakroom, yeah?” He gestured at the door. “You know all this secrecy just tangles you up in knots, and your friends won’t blame you. They thought you were dating me before, remember? They might do an intervention again, but … oh, love. Think about it. About the relief of no more pretending. It's a wedding. It's the perfect time. Everyone will be feeling romantic, and optimistic. Forgiving." He stepped close, biting his lower lip, doing that unreasonably innocent and yet dead sexy thing.

Unfair. Buffy pushed him back. He stumbled into wall, hangers on the coat rack ringing as his head passed through them. Now he was looking at her all accusing. Like... like she'd done something wrong. Again. He muttered, "Simple no would suffice."

How were things always her fault? Her friends would flip out if she admitted she was sleeping with the undead. Or worse, they’d pity her, say this was a sign they should have known, poor, depressed, sad, post-dead Buffy couldn’t hack adult responsibility. “Wait … did you set this up? Was this a plan?”

Oops. She could instantly tell by the way his shoulders dropped two inches that no, he did not set this up. He was legitimately asking for her help, in a situation that was all her doing, and she turned on him. He started to speak, but she interrupted, "You said... you said it didn't mean anything and we shouldn't define things and... and you're changing the rules."

Good. Now he looked more sorry than disappointed. "That was … a suggestion. An’ so is this. I put it on the table, you took it off. That’s fine. See, this is actually us, actually talking. Setting boundaries. No big, romantic reveal. But you have to act sorry for me when I get stood up.”

Buffy bit her lip. She wouldn’t be acting. “I can do that.”

He took a step closer. His hand rested on her hip. Their bodies always felt so natural together. Mmm lips of Spike, moving closer, opening. “Be nice... to have a dance? Under the disco ball and the paper streamers? Rest your head on my shoulder, let the terrible responsibilities of bridesmaid leave you for a moment?"

That sounded... no, bad Buffy. Sinister attraction at work. She put her hand on the doorknob. Good. Not looking at him helped. "I've got centerpieces to set." She closed the door behind her, hoping he'd know to wait a few minutes so no one would see they'd been hiding together.

***

Spike swam his way out of the coat-hangers, which made more noise than was reasonable and yet didn't feel remotely satisfying when you swatted them. He was left with a floor full of hangers, feeling like the biggest berk in the history of berks.

Just had to push, didn't you, mate? Just had to try.

Idiot. He sighed and picked up the hangers. Useless things that got stuck on each other for no good reason. Rather like hearts. 

He hoped this didn't end with him getting dumped. Again. Or worse. There was probably something that was worse, because there always was when you didn't think there could be.

So, fine. He was going to smile and face the ridicule. Stood up at the wedding. William the Bloody Loser. 

At least he could keep an eye on the groom. 

He found Xander by the bar, steering Mr. Harris away from it. "Dad, the bar isn't open yet. You should go help Mom with the flowers."

"Do I look like a woman? YOU help with the flowers. I'm paying for this bar, they open when I get here."

Xander saw Spike and his eyes latched on in pure pleading panic. Spike sauntered over. “So you’re the father of the groom?”

Mr. Harris gave Spike the sort of look that middle-aged crew-cut-wearing men have always given him. “Who the hell are you?”

Spike smiled tightly and gave the answer that worked best with middle-aged blowhards. “Me? I’m the head of Security. I was about to do some important checks on the layout of the area, exits and, er, whatnot.” It wasn’t attracting the interest he hoped. Xander was looking at him like he was an idiot. Spike tried to slip a wink and nod in. “Also, I have to open the back door for the liquor van. Standing around here isn’t going to do you any good. Why not come lend a hand?”

That worked. His soul didn’t even twinge at using his old “fishing for alcoholics” techniques. He gave Xander another wink and left the semi-confused groom-to-be so he could lead Mr. Harris on a wild goose chase around the hall. 

Mr. Harris gave him a once-over. “You dress that way to blend in with the scumbags, huh?”

“Something like.”

Spike led the way the long way around the hall toward the back entrance. He’d done handy reconnoitering earlier in hopes of finding Xander’s “Future self” but the tosser must not have been there, yet. 

“Can you believe this? My son, getting married. He’s not even twenty-five yet!”

“I’ve seen younger.” Spike craned his head, making a good show of checking all the exits.

"Take some advice from me: women will destroy you. They suck the life out of you. Getting hitched is the worst thing you can do. I mean, unless you want to have kids. Knock a girl up without a ring and you can say good-bye to custody."

“How refreshing and mature a view of matrimony,” Spike deadpanned. The back door was open already, the catering truck backed up to it and women in uniforms carrying trays. Spike had to stop at the edge of the sunshine spilling around them.

“Where the hell’s the booze?” Mr. Harris demanded.

Spike sighed. Well, a good Samaritan’s work was never done. “Maybe they got turned around. Let’s check the front entrance.”


	22. I do is Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the wedding

Spike didn’t succeed in keeping Mr. Harris completely away from the booze, but he did succeed in not crying during the vows –it was a close one, weddings always did it for him, but fortunately “security” was a full-time job when the Harrises were in the house. 

Buffy really was beautiful, even in that jello-shot green gown. Willow was standing right next to her, looking fresh and youthful and it was hard to believe she was sinking steadily into the kind of power that corrupted dictators. 

Tara should’ve been there. It wasn’t fair, the white witch missing out to avoid the red. 

No one blew anything up. No one failed to say “I Do” and Xander’s dad wasn’t completely trashed before the first dance. (He was about halfway between thinking he was the funniest guy ever and dancing on the bar top. Spike called that a job as well done as possible.)

Spike sauntered over to where Buffy and Xander were slouching together at the head table, talking the serious talk of friends at momentous events. They broke apart as he neared, not looking suspicious or anything, but it made him feel, once again, outside. He played it cool, pulling a chair out and dropping to face them. “I never saw a strange demon lurking about.”

“It was anti-climactic,” Xander said. “Demon: I’m you from the future. Me: No, you’re a demon pretending to be me from the future. Demon: Nuh-uh. Me: yeah-huh.” He shrugged. “The lack of witty banter was a dead give-away.”

Buffy dropped her heavy lashes against her flushed cheeks. She leaned toward Spike. “Thanks.” Genuine, breathy. Was she thanking him for keeping the secret, or for helping Xander and Anya? She cleared her throat and added, with a side glance at Xander, “For… the dad-wrangling.”

“I definitely owe the undead a beer,” Xander agreed. “I gotta say… this is… relieving. I was so scared, so unsure, but now… it’s over.” He gazed fondly across the room to where Anya was talking excitedly with a circle of vengeance demons. “And it feels so right. Like, what was I afraid of? There’s a vulnerability, like you’re opening your heart to another heart, but it’s strength, too. A wall you didn’t know you needed to lean against.”

Fuck. Tear alert. Manly thoughts. Dog fights. Football. Spike cleared his throat. “Right. Well, sun’s down, suppose I’ll head out.” Yes. He rose to his feet. “Gotta get some platelets in me.”

“Spike?” Buffy followed him. “We should… talk. About… patrol tonight.” She tilted her head toward the doors. 

It wasn’t dancing under the disco ball, but he did get to cross the floor with the lovely lady on his arm. Could she tell he was four seconds from bawling like an infant? 

She led him out onto the long colonnade at the front of the party hall, and Spike felt a weary resignation. “Seeing me off?”

But it wasn’t a peck on the cheek and off with you… she twined her arms around him and looked up, all soft and glowing, “After a dance?”

The music drifting out of the hall wasn’t anything special –some bland pop hit—but at that moment it became Spike’s favorite tune. He’d always known they’d dance together well. Hadn’t they always? Their bodies knew how to move together. It was comfortable. Like lying down, standing up. Like the world faded away. And Buffy was looking at him, really looking, her lips parted, all the gloss gone on the rim of a champagne flute. He could tilt his head down the barest inch to reach her and taste those sweet, clean lips. 

Only half-unconsciously, he leaned toward her. She took a hasty step back. She bit her lip and looked in at the dancing and lounging guests inside the windows.

Bollocks. “Didn’t mean…”

“Sh.” She took his hand, and then she was rushing, slayer-strong, pulling him behind her back into the hall and sharp right into the cloak room.

His mind didn’t catch up to her intentions until his back hit a row of coats. As it was, the thought was only a half-second before her hands were under his shirt. And he was hard, achingly hard, all the love and romance getting mixed up in his heart with lust, and the bright green taffeta slid upward like water as she climbed him. Her mouth was so sweet, her heart hammering loud enough to beat the band. 

He was doing it again. He was letting her replace meaningful conversation with sex. Here, in the very room where she refused to take their relationship public not two hours ago. 

With an extreme force of will, Spike separated from her deep, needy kisses. “Tell me you like me. That’s all. Just like me.”

Buffy groaned and bit his jaw. “Less talk, more kiss.”

He wanted to press her, he wanted to ask for some concession, some affection, but she already had his jeans open and her fingers were working him into her, and Spike knew it would be easier to make love now and talk later. It was good, it was always good, feeling her warmth, her passion, her strength, squeezing him, owning him, tearing his heart out, chewing it up and restoring it, so that it felt like it had beaten, just now, and its stillness was a new thing.

She rode him hard, against the wall, then in a tangled pile of coats, of leather and wool, silk and rayon, rumpled and ground and spent atop. 

She laughed as he searched through the pile for his jeans. He should feel happy, but he didn’t. She really was only interested in his body. Did he really want to make this relationship last longer?


	23. Not Normal Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike tries to figure out what's left to fix in the timeline. Buffy faints. Spike's secrets come out.

Xander didn’t leave Anya at the altar. Willow and Tara were broken up, again. Spike flipped back and forth through his notes. He was running out of foresight. At least with Anya happily married, he didn’t have to worry about getting drunk and shagging her in front of a camera. Was there still a bullet coming for Tara? Could the nerd trio actually cause more harm this time? What if Willow went completely dark side?

What good was travelling back in time if you couldn’t fix everything? 

Frustrated, he threw the book across the cemetery. 

Buffy jumped back as it hit the tombstone in front of her. “Did the book do something wrong?”

“Bollocks.” He hurried and picked the splayed-open book off the dirt, wiping it and hiding it quickly. “No. Just … reading.”

Buffy nodded slowly. “In a cemetery. At night.”

“Vampire?”

“Slayer. So …” She twirled her stake and started to walk away. 

Let her go, mate. Don’t… “About the other night.”

She sighed. “Actually trying to do my slayage tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. I could tag along, hold ‘em while you stab ‘em. Maybe we could … talk?”

She frowned, confused. “Talk?”

“I know, strange new thing the kids are doing these days. There might even be witty banter.” She paused. He saw her pause. She was thinking about saying yes. He leaned close.

Willow and Xander came stomping up the path. Buffy jumped away from him.   
Xander asked, “Spike is tagging along?”

“Yes. Hi, guys!” Buffy smiled falsely. “I found Spike, and, uh, I was just … uhh… trying to find out what dangerous contraband he had.”

Spike felt something snap in his forehead. It might have been his temper. “I’ll just get out of your way, then. You don’t need old Spike around unless you have some monster to beat up or drunken father to babysit.”

Xander frowned at him. “What’s with the betrayed confidence schtick? You’re not our best buddy. Aren’t you the one always reminding us you’re evil?”

“After all I’ve done.” Spike felt his jaw clench.

Buffy stepped in front of him and pushed his chest. “Go on. No need to get talky.”

He stepped back, brushing her hands off of him. "You know what I've never done? I've never told your secret. None of your secrets.”

Xander said, “You told everyone I whimper in my sleep.”

“You told everyone I used instant cookie mix,” Willow added.

Buffy looked panicked. “There’s no need to goad the vampire into telling secrets. Spike knows that we appreciate his help with … things.” She gave him a silent, pleading look.

“I never have told a secret when it mattered. Always kept my word, even when I was evil. You still don’t treat me like I have as much right to be here as any of you.” He looked right at Buffy. “Happy enough to have me around when you need me, but that’s what it is, isn’t it? Only when you need me.”

“And now we don’t need you,” Xander supplied. “Come on, guys. I told Anya I’d be back by midnight.”

“Just go,” Buffy whispered.

Spike took a step back, then another. He saw them relax, all of them happy he was toddling along like a good attack dog. “Jokes on you lot! I have my soul back." He raised two fingers.

It was perfect. Willow squeezed her eyes shut and blinked hard and shook her head. Xander’s mouth hung open. It would have been the absolute best, if Buffy hadn’t fainted dead.

Spike barely got to her before her head hit the ground, and then Willow and Xander were fighting him to hold her, snapping their fingers and waving in front of her face like idiots. 

Spike took her shoulders. “Let’s get her back to my crypt, it’s right here.”

Xander pushed him away. “Just go. We’re her friends, we’ll take care of her.”

And there it was happening, again, Willow and Xander carrying her away, like he didn’t matter. Spike advanced on them. “I just told you I have a soul.”

Willow waved him off. “Yeah … wow. Hold that thought. We have more important things to worry about right now.”

This was supposed to be it. They treated him like garbage because he didn’t have a soul. He just told them he did, and he was still garbage? With a heavy sigh he followed after them. 

“I remember this. It’s a demon, one Andrew summoned. Poisoned her. We have to gather ingredients for a remedy.” He felt for his notebook in his pocket. It wasn’t there. Bollocks, had he dropped it? He looked back where they’d come from. He had to find it but he also couldn’t leave them to bollocks this up again. “It’s a Glargabullgashmanick. Need the venom. Only Buffy doesn’t take it the first time, she thinks it’s a lie.”

Buffy was stumbling helplessly between Willow and Xander, when Spike could’ve carried her fine. Willow gave him such a look. “What are you talking about? What’s this remembering from?”

“You’ll remember a Glargabullgashmanick if you see one, or smell one, believe me.”

Xander sighed, “Spike, you only told me and Anya.”

Buffy, softly, asked, “Told you what?”

“He’s from the future,” Xander said, like this was as interesting as being from New Jersey. “Probably explains the soul, too.”

Buffy shook off Xander’s arm. She turned to stare at Spike. 

Spike licked his lips. “If we—”

“You. All this time. I’m feeling guilty about keeping secrets and you … you didn’t tell me you have a soul?”

Spike felt slapped. He stepped back. “I…” None of his explanations felt reasonable.

Weirdly, Xander came to his defense. “You have to be careful in time travel, if you reveal too much, things change, like in Back to the Future II, and no one wants that.” 

Buffy advanced on Spike, suddenly recovered from her swoon. “You had future knowledge? How long? How much?” Spike backed up. “Did you know when I’d feel vulnerable? You knew … exactly when I’d say yes. Is that it? Is everything just how you planned it?”

This … was bad. “No! That’s not it at all. I mean, yes, I knew a few things, but I—”

“You should have told us.” Willow had the gall to look hurt.

Buffy stumbled, and Willow and Xander rushed to her sides. It was the poison, from the demon, but Spike couldn’t help but feel it was his fault, he was hurting her. If only he’d remembered the damn thing! He could have stopped it from stabbing her. Of all the things to forget about.

Willow, Xander, and Buffy retreated from sight, a shabby, struggling trio of young people with no idea what was coming next.

Spike knew there had to be a way to fix things, but all he had the energy to do was go back to his crypt and drink.


	24. A Book In The Wrong Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike is shaken out of his hangover by Anya, with surprising news. Willow has Spike's little notebook, and she didn't exactly like what she saw written in it. Can Spike, Anya, and Tara save Willow from herself? Where's Xander and a speech about yellow crayons when you need one?

The door to the crypt burst open, and it felt like it was knocked clear through his skull.

Before Spike could tell if this were a dream or not, Anya grabbed his arm, tugging him. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop being hung over and help.”

Anya was getting him? Spike pulled out of her grip, windmilled, and fell on his face. Ow. That woke him up. “Venom. Gotta … get the demon venom.”

“Demon venom? That was hours ago. Once Willow knew the demon’s name, she was able to magic the antidote like she was ordering an overpriced coffee beverage.”

Spike rubbed his eyes and found his hair was all tousled. Hell. “What do you need me for, then?”

Anya stamped one stylish, strappy sandal. “I’m supposed to be cataloging wedding presents and sending thank-you cards. It’s your fault, this time, and you’re coming to fix it.” Spike slowly got to his feet against the chair arm and Anya waved a hand up and down at him, “What makes this go faster? Blood? Smelling salts?”

“Cup of blood, shot of jack,” Spike croaked.

To his relief, Anya bustled into action, procuring both with the brisk efficiency of an ER nurse at the end of her shift and all out of fucks. “Now come on. The sooner we save the world, again, the sooner I get to leave on my honeymoon. We’re supposed to leave tomorrow and I’m not paying cancellation fees on the airfare to Niagara!”

The blood and jack cleared his senses and he shrugged into his coat. “What’s ending the world, now?”

“Willow,” Anya said. “She found your little cheat sheet.”

***

Spike broke into a run as he saw the light, phosphorous bright, at the end of the block. Warren’s parent’s bungalow was glowing like a chemical factory fire. 

Willow herself floated a foot above the sidewalk, her hair lifted around her head like she was suspended in water. The bright light wasn’t coming from her, it was coming from Tara, who stood on the front steps to the house, her arms wide, a disk of light pouring around her. 

“I’m doing this FOR YOU!” Willow shouted, and two tendrils of red twisted out from her hands, hit the white shield and dissipated. 

“And I’m doing this for you,” Tara said. Her voice was strained, not nearly as strong as Willow’s. She was sweating, her posture struggling as if some great weight pressed down on her.

Spike stopped as near as he dared to come. “Bloody hell, Red! Don’t smack your girlfriend on the street!”

Oops … bad tactic to take. Willow turned to him with a black-eyed glare and he was flying ass-over-teakettle. He hit a tree upside-down and back-first and then hit every branch on his way back to the ground.

Anya stood over him. “Well ,that’s not the way to do it. I thought you’d use your fists or something.”

Spike picked himself up and brushed twigs from his coat. “Where’s Xander?”

“Getting the police.”

Spike bit his lip. Seemed like Tara was their best gun, and she was already firing on full. “Last time Willow nearly ended the world, Xander talked her down.”

“Well, he’s on his way?” Anya shook her head. “Can’t you do anything? Be tactful.”

Spike seriously doubted the solution to this problem lay in Miss Manner’s book of aphorisms. “Is Warren in the house still?”

Anya crossed her arms. “All three of them are hiding in there like scared little mice.”

Grimly, Spike walked forward again. When Willow glanced his way, he held out his hands. “Just want to talk.”

Her face was cold, almost inhuman. “What could you possibly have to say to me? You knew she was in danger and you did NOTHING.”

Spike walked slowly into the line of fire, between Willow and Tara. “I tried, but yeah, I bollocksed it all up. Should have come clean, told everyone what I knew.”

He felt a wind pressure building, Willow’s hair moved up and it was strikingly like a scorpion’s tail rising. He hastily put more grovel in his posture. “The soul, sometimes it makes it harder to think straight. You want to make the right decision so bad you make no decision, and that becomes the decision.”

“Bored now.”

This time it felt like a gallon of vodka wrapped in a brick hitting the side of his temple, and he blinked away black spots to find Anya pushing him back upright and grumbling about it all the while. 

“I thought vampires were supposed to be clever. Or quick enough to dodge, at least.”

At least it had given Tara a break, but she had one leg bent behind her now, her hands up like she was supporting a crumbling wall.

Spike supposed if he had one thing going for him, it was that he could take a beating. He ran into the line of fire again. “I’ve made the mistake you’re about to!” That got her attention. Black eyes narrowed. Spike smacked his chest. “I’ve tried to use anger to show my love. Red, you’re scaring her. You’re pushing her away. Don’t you see who is standing in front of you? You care about her. Look at her. Look at Tara. Look at what you’re doing to her.” He stepped back, and to the left, closer to Tara but no longer blocking her. 

Please, he thought, please look. He saw Willow’s eyes soften as they tracked to Tara. Softly, he urged, “Tara, tell her how you feel about her.”

Tara didn’t miss a beat. Her voice was strained and tears ran down her cheeks, but she was loud enough, “Please, Willow. I’m so afraid for you. I’m losing you.”

Willow shook her head. She also sank a few inches, which was good, but then she drew herself together and sent another blast of energy that sent Spike to the ground. It was like an enormous wind, flattening everything, even the grass around him. How was Tara still standing under this? Willow shouted at her, “You left me. You aren’t losing me. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here, but you haven’t. You won’t even let me kill the man who is going to kill you!”

“Tell her you love her!” Spike cried out from the ground. Both witches looked at him. He supposed he should have said who. There was a powerful tide, like the air was being sucked away, and he had to crawl to get back up on his knees facing them. “You love each other. Both of you. You might not even want to be near each other right now, but you love each other. Love is scary, yeah? Love rips you open, makes you care, makes what she thinks matter more than anything. Love is powerful, though, and fuck me if I don’t think love can save us.”

Willow was crying. “She wants me to be weak!”

“She wants you to be strong. Tell her, Tara. Tell her why you love her.”

Tara was crying, too. “I love the woman who highlights every line of the textbook. The woman who saved Miss Kitty Fantastico from the shelter. The woman who gets upset when characters in movies get hurt.”

Willow’s voice, for the first time, sounded like her old self, “What about the woman who has the strength to save you?”

“This isn’t saving me, Willow. Don’t you see? Don’t you see where I’m standing?”

This was a tipping point. Spike felt it. The wind pushing him back ebbed and he got to his feet. He heard Anya or someone else advancing behind him and held out a hand to hold them back.

Tara said, “I’m standing in front of you. I’m here for you.”

“He’s going to kill you,” Willow said, plaintively, her feet dropping to the ground. 

“Not this time,” Tara said. The white light seeped back into her. She took a step forward. She held her hand out to Willow, and Willow looked at it, unsure. 

The police arrived then, with a breathless Xander. “Ladies, do you want to step away from the house? Do you live here? Whose house is this?”

A cop looked at Spike, “Are you a resident at this address?” Spike quickly held his hands up and shook his head. “Just a friend.”


	25. Happily Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little quiet, perhaps, a little sudden, but all good fanfics must come to an end.

Buffy’s friends once again ran off to save the world without her. She’d been delirious for maybe an hour. It wasn’t like her slayer powers had vanished or something. But the last she’d heard was that they were at Warren’s house, which was all the way on the other side of town, and Buffy and cars were still not very mixy things, and Sunnydale public transport was really … not so much. 

So, slayer jogging power activate. She ran her best, but had to stop to catch her breath when she was almost there. She knew it was one of the bungalows ahead, probably the one with the big glowy aura around it. 

She approached more cautiously and saw Spike get tossed aside like a rag-doll. Shit. She ran forward, and tripped on something. It was the weirdest little thing, a little leather book, old-fashioned looking and careworn, but also tabbed with fluorescent sticky notes like the way Willow did with textbooks.

Buffy tucked it in her pocket. Spike was struggling toward Willow, his hands out to her. “Don’t you see who is standing in front of you?”

He was talking to Willow, and to Tara, but all of a sudden it felt like he was talking to her. “Love is scary, yeah? Love rips you open, makes you care.”

How young he looked, just then, the wind blowing his hair all around, his lips parted, his eyes begging. 

Buffy had an uncomfortable recollection, of a doctor’s office, of an earnest woman asking her, “What does it mean, that you would fantasize about a man who puts up with that kind of abuse? Surely you see this isn’t real. The immortal lover, willing to sacrifice anything for you, insatiably available to your needs. Real relationships have give and take. What does he get out of this?”

Buffy shook the memory … the delusion. The police were arriving, and the strange, unearthly glow was fading from the night sky. 

Spike walked toward her with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”

He waited a moment, expectantly. Buffy felt herself missing her cue. He sighed and continued walking past. “Be in my crypt if you need me.”

“Wait!” He turned, something a little afraid in his expression.

Numbly, Buffy took the book out of her back pocket. “Is this yours?”

The finch meant yes. Spike rubbed the back of his head. “Did, uh, did you read it?”

“Do you want me to?” She hadn’t really thought of the question, it just popped out, but Spike looked at her like she’d renewed his faith in something. People, maybe. 

He took the book. “Maybe, later.” He smiled and walked away. 

Buffy felt like she’d gotten away with something, like he’d let her off the hook again, and she wasn’t even sure from what. 

***

Spike sat on the counter at the magic box, flipping through his now-color-highlighted personal notebook. “Bloody hell, Red. You read all this, my demon contacts, the recipes, all my guesses on the first evil, and the only thing that stood out was ‘kill Warren’?”

Willow sat slumped over a cup of tea. “I was so scared I’d lose Tara.”

Tara rubbed her back. “Trying to control everything is how you lose everything. You grip too tight, and a person has to escape to breathe.”

“I didn’t mean…” Willow rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know how to let go.” She gripped Tara’s hands in both of hers.

It was getting mushy again. Spike smacked the open book pages. “I hope a valuable lesson has been learned. You can’t attack someone for something they haven’t done yet. Even after highlighting it in pink.”

Anya peered over his shoulder. “Like you and I having sex on the conference table?”

Buffy and Xander both lifted their hands off the table in question, and looked back in horror.

Spike slammed the book shut and then clutched it to his chest for added protection.. “Alternate timeline. Xander left her at the altar, and I got dumped. We were both free people.”

Buffy stood up. “Maybe we should all read that book.”

Xander said, “I’m very, very curious now. And jealous. And angry.”

“Me, too,” Buffy said. 

Anya frowned at her. “Why are you jealous? Are you jealous of my Xander?”

Buffy looked like a deer in headlights. Spike’s heart clenched in his chest. He hopped lightly down from the counter. “Anyway, it’s all caught up, now. More or less. This point, first time through, I was on the other side of the world, fighting a demon to win my soul back. I don’t know what happens next.”

Buffy slipped her hand into his. "That makes two of us." 

Was she … holding his hand? In front of her mates? Spike wondered how a dead man could feel so breathless. “Uh, there is this thing coming up with the first evil, I mean, eventually. They’ll build a new school and these Neanderthal-vampires show up and …” 

His voice trailed off. Everyone was looking at Buffy holding his hand, and she was looking up at him in a way that could only be described as “adoring.” She took in a deep breath and turned to face the room. "Spike and I are seeing each other. It’s … been going on a while, and not perfect, and you can probably guess why I wanted to keep it a secret, but Spike didn’t, and now I’m giving in. Everyone, Spike is my boyfriend.”

They looked more gobsmacked than when he announced his soul. Spike feared he would die from smiling, or at least look uncool. He coughed. "Oy. Didn't agree to that ‘boyfriend’ label."

She put her arms around his neck. "What do you want me to say?"

"That. Exactly that. But I had to give you crap anyway." 

She smiled, and then kissed him. Her lips, on his, in public. He felt breathless. He felt like he was blushing. He heard Xander say, “My brain is melting.”

Anya spoke quite loudly and clearly, “Obviously, I did not and will not cheat on you with him. Buffy would murder me, easily. I don’t even have especial strength for a human person.”

“Where do we go from here?” Willow whispered.

Anya, as usual, had all the answers. “You go to witch-therapy. Xander and I go to Niagara Falls for casinos, nature’s glory, and a week-long wine country tour.”

Spike never wanted to end this kiss, but he could feel Buffy starting to strain with lack of air. He pulled back to feel her inhale. “And they all lived happily ever after,” he said, which got him an eye-roll, and yeah, he didn’t believe it. “I don’t get it, though. All of this.” He flapped the notebook in one hand. “It was all on a wish to come back before I screwed it all up. But I never figured out what I did wrong. None of what I did seemed to change anything.” She was looking up at him, still, so warm, against him. It was like dancing. He felt light-headed. “But something changed. What did I do?”

“Did you ever think,” Buffy smoothed his t-shirt with her hands, “that it wasn’t all you? We screwed it up. Because this is a relationship, and it takes two people to do that. So we screwed it up, and now, we can fix it.”

“Together,” he said, and took her hand, against his chest.


End file.
